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Wednesday, April 7
4-6 pm
Enola Office, Meadow Room
55 Miller Street, Enola

Nurturing the child scientist in your classroom…

Please join our author and educator Belinda Basca for a hands-on, minds-on professional development workshop that will explore the philosophies and best practices of inquiry-based science learning. Bring your questions about how inquiry can make science sing!

Belinda Basca, MEd

Belinda began her career in the classroom in the Downingtown Area School District and then expanded her knowledge of science education as an educational researcher at Harvard’s Project Zero. She has worked with Science Companion as a lead author of several modules and currently manages company operations and pilot programs. She has a BS in biology and education from Penn State and a MEd in education from Harvard.

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To Register:
· Click here to register online at 48CARATS
· Or click here to email Steve Davis at sdavis@caiu.org

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**Would you like your Intermediate Unit to host a presentation like this? Just contact us at info(a)sciencecompanion.com — we’ll be happy to help you set one up!

We hope you had  a great time at Virtual SECO 2010!

Did you enter our raffle?  Make sure you do so you have a chance to win materials from our Habitats module!

Click here to find out more!

First of all, it’s Ohio’s state tree, that provides a nut by the same name. Native Americans in Ohio believed it looked like the eye of a deer.

Buckeyes are also a delicious peanut butter and chocolate candy that look a lot like the nuts.
Click here for the recipe!

Buckeyes are also basketball players, swimmers, football players, tennis players, lacrosse players – student athletes at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.

Ohio State Buckeyes

Want to know more about buckeyes (the trees)? Visit this great site.

Flamingos

In Mr. Darwin’s honor, we thought we’d share our Virtual Field Trip checking out some great birds at the Santa Barbara Zoo, combined with a Lesson from our Habitats module on how bird beaks have been shaped by their evolution to match their habitats.

You can download it here!

Check our some of our recommended reading on Habitats.

We have new Student Reference Books for Habitats!  For more information click here!

For tips on how to use Student Reference Books effectively in your classroom, click here.

Charles Darwin

Naturalist Charles Darwin is visiting Columbus this week! He’s come to SECO to share his thoughts about his ground-breaking book On the Origin of Species.

He writes:

“WHEN on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.

My work is now nearly finished; but as it will take me two or three more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this Abstract.

This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.”

For a look at science, religion, and family life in Victorian England, check out Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith.

We’d like to welcome you to the Virtual SECO – our homage to the 2010 Science Education Council of Ohio Professional Development Conference, hosted in Columbus, Ohio, February 25-27.

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Click here for the Official SECO Conference Schedule.

Join us in Columbus, virtually!

(The best part about visiting virtually is that the weather is perfect, even in February.)

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For everyone who isn’t able to make it all the way to Columbus for the live version of SECO, we’d like to offer the Science Companion Virtual version, that you can enjoy from the comfort of your chair. Grab a cup of hot chocolate, and join us for several days of science education fun!

Stay tuned over the next several days. We’ll be offering you a free lesson, introducing you to our Ohio Sales Reps and a special guest, raffling a Habitats teacher materials package, pointing out the vital differences between different kinds of buckeyes, and other important topics!

Enjoy!

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Join us for a virtual field trip to the Santa Barbara Zoo and explore how the habitats birds live in have shaped their beaks so they can catch the food they need. This is the third in our “Science in Real Life” Series, electronic publications of a virtual field trip matching a Science Companion module lesson to special places or current events.

This month, birds, beaks, and habitats, oh my!

Click here to download our Habitats Field Trip Publication from Scribd!

Or email us if you have trouble with the download; we’ll be happy to email you a copy.

Yesterday, our Author and Director of Operations Belinda Basca visited the Chester County Intermediate Unit 24 and presented a workshop on inquiry science to elementary teachers there.

We wanted to share a bit from that workshop with you — please click the link below to download Belinda’s PowerPoint presentation.

What is Inquiry? PPT Workshop

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Thanks to all of you who attended the Train the Trainers Session!

At Science Companion, we believe that teachers are the best teachers, and we recognize that school districts often struggle to come up with funding to bring in expensive outside trainers. So, we use, whenever possible, a “Train the Trainers” model, where one of our Professional Development Experts comes and works with lead teachers in the school district so they can learn how best to support their colleagues.

Here are some photos of the group that met yesterday:

Click here for some great tips on conducting science talks.