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Newton Network Newsletter

September 2009

Newton Network News:

Welcome to the new school year! We hope you had an enjoyable and restful summer. We have had a busy summer here at the Raggio Research Center. Maybe you took advantage of our NERDS or EPSCoR programs, or maybe you took an AP course and heightened your own knowledge of a particular subject. Hopefully, everyone had some time to just take it easy as well.

Now that the heat of the summer is starting to cool down, we thought we would take the chance to talk about the weather. Everyone talks about it, but what is it exactly? In this newsletter we supply classroom activities and lesson plans to encourage students to do more than just look at weather.

However, since the summer was packed with activities, camps and workshops, we will start with a review of the activities and give you tips on being part of the fun next summer.

We would once again ask you to please pass your newsletter on to your colleagues and let them know that they can sign up for their own newsletter as easily as going to our website (www.unr.edu/newton).

In This Issue:

Summer Reviews- NERDS Feather River and Lamoille trips, EPSCoR, summer camps

Weather Experiments- Classroom ideas, lesson plans and great experiments

Climate Change Workshops- Professional development Climate Change

Science Olympiad- Get ready for next year's competition

Newton Network Update- Requests and suggestions

Summer Review- We advertised a lot of great activities in the spring and we wanted to give a recap. Most of these activities will be available next summer, so mark your calendar now and keep them in mind for next summer!

NERDS (Nevada Educators Really Doing Science) Feather River and Lamoille tripswere hugely successful. All spots were filled within two weeks of becoming available and there was a waiting list. We had 32 teachers from across Nevada attend the program for the Ecology of Feather River Watershed and Ecology of Lamoille Canyon.  The teachers attended two pre-sessions a 7day field experience and two post sessions.  Participants in the trip experienced inquiry learning as they movedfrom observations to research question formulation, data collection, analysis andsharing their expertise with other participants and then wrote their own scientific paper.  The teachers take this experience to develop and share inquiry lessons across the curriculum. The lessons are aligned with standards, learning activities and the needs of diverse students and assessments into their classrooms. For more information and pictures from previous years visit the NERDS website at (http://www.unr.edu/educ/raggiocenter/nerds)  

The EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) grant also discussed water in this year’s summer program. The group of local elementary and middle-school teachers explored the Truckee River watershed, talked about global climate change and its effect on human life and took field trips to the local hydroelectric plant and ice core lab. Their website is down for construction but we will post it as soon as it becomes available again.

The UNR Engineering Camps were a great success. There were five week-long camps taking place on campus. A record number of 31 girls attended the camps thanks to the generous program support from the Mallory Foundation and Mrs. Barkow of the Community Foundation. Many campers, particularly the young women, were able to obtain scholarships and financial assistance to cover the cost of registration. For information on next year’s camps, please visit the UNR College of Engineering outreach page in March. (http://www.unr.edu/engineering/outreach/camps.html)

UNR’s Girl’s Math and Technology Camp once again encouraged young girls to explore math in hopes they will pursue mathematics and technology majors when they attend college. 60 girls attended and stayed on the UNR campus for several days. The camp also received a $3,000 grant from Wells Fargo’s “Grant A Wish for Your School” mini-grant. The money will be used to purchase a computer for the program and to assist with the development of a Web site that will serve as a year-round support system in relation to math for girls, their parents, educators and researchers. For more information on the camp, please call 775-682-7849.

UNLV’s Liftoff with Math Camp was once again successful. Middle and high-school students spent a week on the UNLV campus trying their hand at college math and science. At camp, students demonstrated the daily use of mathematics, learned how to use mathematics to model natural phenomena and became familiar with modern techniques of mathematical computer simulation. Check their website next spring for information on 2010 camps. (http://edoutreach.unlv.edu/spacecamps/)

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Weather Experiments and Classroom Activities- John Ruskin, a British art critic and social thinker, once said “Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” This school year, give your students the opportunity to learn how weather works through classroom experiments and activities.

Have your students learn the basics of weather prediction by building their own weather station. Build a barometer, wind vane, and rain gauge to set up a working weather station. Spend a semester or two observing weather patterns and changes.  Full directions and activity ideas can be found at
( http://familyfun.go.com/parenting/learn/activities/
feature/famf199606_famf66weath/
famf199606_famf66weath.html)

Scijinks.com is a NASA sponsored  web site with fantastic  classroom weather activities. Have students make a weather satellite and then explore how weather satellites, teamed with scientists, pilots, computer programmers, and super computers work together to save lives by predicting where large storms will hit and giving people time to get out of the way.  (http://scijinks.jpl.nasa.gov/en/educators/activity_articles.shtml )

Weather.about.com is a great resource for lesson plans and teacher help. The lesson plans and activities cover most grade levels but mainly focus on elementary and middle school experiments. These two were our favorites:

• Demonstrate  air density using raisins and soda:
  ( http://weather.about.com/od/lessonplanshighschool/
  a/sewer_clugs.htm)
• Highs, Lows and Fronts - Depression and Frontal Systems lesson plan:
  (http://weather.about.com/od/lessonplanshighschool/
  a/depressions.htm)

Did you know the biggest snowflake ever found measured 15 inches across? Weird weather in Nevada is usually limited to snowstorms and flashfloods but that should not stop your students from wanting to learn about typhoons and fog. Share these fun (and sometimes amusing) facts about different kinds of weather with your students. (http://www.funshun.com/amazing-facts/weather-facts.html)

And keep an eye out for upcoming meteor showers. The closet meteor shower is the Orionids around October 21^st. (http://stardate.org/nightsky/meteors/)  

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Climate Change Workshop-Looking for a way to expand your knowledge of Earth system science, climate change and global change into your science classes? Climate Discovery Online is a series of six- and seven-week courses for middle and high school educators. The courses are completely online and combine geoscience content, information about current climate research, easy to implement hands-on activities and group discussion. Registration is going on now and continues until Friday, September 18^th. Visit (http://ecourses.ncar.ucar.edu/) for information on courses and how to register.

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Science Olympiad- The rules and packets are on their way to Dr. Richard Vineyard at the Nevada Department of Education. We will tell you more about it in next month's issue, but you can go ahead and send him your registration now if you would like. We have posted the invitation letter and registration form on our website at (http://www.unr.edu/newton/docs/regform-2010.doc) if you would like to do this. More about this next month . . .

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Newton Network Announcement - Do you have any requests or suggestion for resources or information you would like to see in the newsletter or on our web site?  Send all questions, comments or suggestions to Robert Newbury (rnewbury@unr.edu).  Your input is always appreciated and helps us improve our service to you.

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