Teacher Guide

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The purpose of the website is to help 4th and 5th grade students learn the STEM fair curriculum. This website is intended to support the STEM fair curriculum, but it is not a substitute for this curriculum. Teachers are expected to teach the STEM fair curriculum and then they may elect to assign sections from this website for warm-up, follow-up, extension, or review. Key points are summarized in the presentation for parents and teachers (PowerPoint File , or PDF file ). 

Internet Resources

        Information about the curriculum can be found at http://www.bcps.org/offices/science/sci_fairs.html. Visit Discovery School's website for additional background for teachers about science fairs. You will find recommended sites for students on the Recommended Links page.

Perspective

The Virtual Science Fair Portal website is intended to be flexible enough to be used differently by different teachers.  Because the STEM fair unit can be taught anytime prior to a local school STEM fair, there may be a lapse of time between the instruction and the actual school fair.  For example, if the unit is taught in October and the fair is held in January, students may need a refresher. Students and their parents can use the tutorials to review each stage of the scientific method and corresponding expectations of the STEM fair process.  Families can also access the website’s Internet resources as they work at their own pace. Alternatively, the website can be used by teachers in the classroom either during the unit or when students work on their projects.   Furthermore, teachers can elect to use only specific parts of the website.  Students do not need to complete the entire website. For example, if the teacher has taught the curriculum lesson on forming a hypothesis, but some students are still having trouble with that skill, the identified students could use the Form a Hypothesis exploration on the classroom computer as a rotating center. 

If students will mainly use the website outside of class, consider providing opportunities for students without Internet access from home, to use the computers in the school’s lab or library before or after school. For example, if students need time to conduct their research, the classroom teacher, technology integration teacher, and/or library media specialist could assign the Researching Help exploration to the entire class in the computer lab.  Then, one of these teachers could open the computer lab up during recess for students to sign-up for additional time to use the Internet for their research.

Because this resource is web-based, it can be used anywhere - anytime.  This provides the teacher the flexibility of using it for homework assignments, in the computer lab, or at the classroom computer.  Consider each exploration separately and decide how (and even if) you wish to use it to fit your classroom situation.  Using the website from school is totally at your discretion. Feel free to provide students with a brief orientation to the website in school and then leave it up to them to elect to use it as they wish from home. 

The Office of Science decided to create this resource so that students have a variety of media and alternatives to help them become successful in completing STEM fair projects.  The curriculum, the student packets, parent orientation, and this website are all meant to facilitate this goal.  These alternatives overlap. All that matters is that as many BCPS children as possible have opportunities to participate.  Optimally, these alternatives will help them to participate in a rich, meaningful, exciting, and educational ways.

Website Organization

        The framework for the website is that you are walking into the eLabsInc company. eLabsInc is conducting a contest for future scientists. There are three main sections to the website (Directions, Explorations, and Resources).

        The Directions section provides information about how to use the website. Since there are three different audiences (students, teachers, and parents), the website provides introductory guides for each audience. Common material (i.e., frequently asked questions, technical requirements, and an orientation tour) are available as hyperlinks from each guide.

        The heart of the website is a series of ten presentations (i.e., explorations) on each stage of the STEM fair process.  The presentations are interactive and include a handout for student use.  Since the presentations are web-based, hyperlinks to related resources across the Internet are available as well.  A typical exploration will take a student about an hour to complete.  It is recommended that students take the orientation tour before embarking on their first exploration.

        The Resources section contains recommended links, documents, a glossary of pertinent terms, and two general purpose explorations (on researching and writing).

Instructional Strategies

        Each exploration can be used in a lesson in a number of ways. For example, if you have a projector available, you could show the presentation to the whole class as a warm up before instruction on the topic or as a review after your instruction on the topic.  Alternatively, if you have access to the computer lab for the lesson, students could work through the presentation at their own pace as they complete the written work to be turned in.  On the other hand, if you have several student computers in the back of your classroom, groups of students could be assigned different sections of the website to be completed as a rotating center and then communicate their learning to the rest of the class.

        The STEM fair instruction is a wonderful opportunity for collaborative teaching. Consider working with your school librarian on the researching component.  Consider working with a language arts teacher on the writing component.  Feel free to involve your Art teacher as students are creating their displays. Opportunities to collaborate with your Technology Integration Teacher exist throughout the STEM fair process.

Curriculum Alignment

Science:

1.0 Skills and Processes

A. Scientific Inquiry:

1. Access and process information from readings, investigations, and/or oral communications.

2. Recognize and develop hypotheses that can be tested in well-designed investigations.

3. Recognize the elements of a simple well-designed investigation.

4. Analyze and develop a well-designed investigation.

6. Collect, organize, and accurately display data collected from investigations.

9. Communicate findings from hands-on investigations and print and non-print resources.
 

C. Applications of Science:

3. Design, plan, and construct objects in response to a particular need or problem.

4. Evaluate and modify designs and products created to solve a problem and explain how one solution can cause other problems.

Reading:
2.0 Comprehension of Informational Text

A Comprehension of Informational Text

1. Develop comprehension skills by reading a variety of self-selected and assigned print and electronic informational texts

a. Read, use, and identify the characteristics of nonfiction materials to gain information and content knowledge
c. Select and read to gain information from personal interest materials, such as brochures, books, magazines, cookbooks, catalogs, and web sites

2. Identify and use text features to facilitate understanding of informational texts

a. Use print features
b. Use graphic aids
c. Use informational aids
d. Use organizational aids

3. Determine important ideas and messages in informational texts

a. Identify and explain the author’s/text’s purpose and intended audience
b. Identify and explain the author’s opinion
c. State and support main ideas and messages
d. Summarize or paraphrase
e. Identify and explain information not related to the main idea
f. Identify and explain relationships between and among ideas
g. Draw conclusions and inferences and make generalizations and predictions from text
h. Distinguish between a fact and an opinion
i. Identify and explain how someone might use the text
j. Connect the text to prior knowledge or experience

Writing:

4.0 Writing

A. Writing

1. Compose texts using the prewriting and drafting strategies of effective writers and speakers

a. Generate, select, and narrow topics, collectively and independently, using graphic organizers, prior writing, and/or prior experiences
b. Select and use appropriate organizational structures, such as narrative, chronological or sequential order, description, main idea and detail, problem/solution, question/answer, comparison and contrast, cause and effect

·        Complete an idea by providing topic, support, and concluding sentences

2. Compose oral, written, and visual presentations that express personal ideas, inform, and persuade
a. Compose to express personal ideas by experimenting with a variety of forms and techniques suited to topic, audience, and purpose
b. Describe in prose and/or poetic forms to clarify, extend, or elaborate on ideas by using vivid language, such as imagery and figurative language
c. Compose to inform using relevant support and a variety of appropriate organizational structures and signal words within a paragraph
d. Compose to persuade using significant reasons and relevant support to agree or disagree with an idea

·        Take a position and generate convincing reasons to support it

·        Consider the effectiveness of form, diction, audience appeal, and organization

e. Use writing-to-learn strategies, such as learning logs, dialogue journals, and quick writes to connect ideas and thinking about lesson content
f. Manage time and process when writing for a given purpose

3. Compose texts using the revising and editing strategies of effective writers and speakers

a. Revise texts for clarity, completeness, and effectiveness

·        Eliminate words and ideas that do not support the main idea

·        Clarify meaning by adding modifiers and sensory words within a sentence

·        Clarify meaning by rearranging sentences within a text

·        Provide sentence variety and length by combining sentences and correcting rambling sentences

b. Use suitable traditional and electronic resources to refine presentations and edit texts for effective and appropriate use of language and conventions, such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and pronunciation

·        Self edit

·        Peer edit

·        Dictionary

·        Thesaurus

·        Spell checker

·        Language handbook

·        Grammar checker

c. Prepare the final product for presentation to an audience

Math:

3.0 Knowledge of Measurement:

B. Measurement Tools

1. Measure in customary and metric units

a. Select and use appropriate tools and units 

4.0 Knowledge of Statistics:

A. Data Displays 

1. Collect, organize, and display data

a. Collect data by conducting surveys to answer a question

b. Organize and display data in line plots and frequency tables using a variety of categories and sets of data

f. Determine the appropriate type of graph to effectively display data

B. Data Analysis 

1. Analyze data   

b. Interpret line graphs

2. Describe a set of data

a. Determine the mean of a given data set or data display

7.0 Processes of Mathematics:

C. Communications

1. Present mathematical ideas using words, symbols, visual displays, or technology

e. Express solutions using pictorial, tabular, graphical, or algebraic methods

f. Explain solutions in written form

D. Connections 

1. Relate or apply mathematics within the discipline, to other disciplines, and to life

b. Identify mathematical concepts in relationship to other disciplines

c. Identify mathematical concepts in relationship to life

BCPS Library Indicators:

• Use research skills in order to evaluate, select, record, and reorganize information.

• Use reference skills in order to locate information in a variety of sources.

BCPS Educational Technology Learning Goals and Indicators:

Prior to completion of Grade 5, students will:

6. follow copyright guidelines to use technological resources responsibly. (LG-3)

14. use online resources to access, evaluate, and use information for a specific purpose. (LG-5, 6)

Get Started

1. If you are using the website from a computer at school, your computer meets the technical requirements.  If you are working at home, check out the technical requirements before you begin.

2. Then, take the orientation tour.

3. When you are ready, choose one:

I want to start at the beginning.	I want to jump right into a particular area.	I'm having a specific problem.
Start by Finding a Topic	Go to a Specific Exploration	Go to the Question & Answers

Copyright© Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS), 2006.www.bcps.org. Email feedback to kbenson@bcps.org.