The site is a compilation of links and material specifically designed for students, parents, and teachers in middle school (6th to 8th grade).
Type of Material:
It includes lesson plans,presentations, links to websites that cover these materials, hand outs, and material specific for science fairs. The topics covered are geology, astronomy, chemistry, and physics. The experiments presented meet the STEM standards for middle school science in Arizona.
Recommended Uses:
This is a great place to find extra homework, quizzes and more information about scientific topics covered in middle school. Teachers in particular can find lesson plans already made and organized by topic.
Technical Requirements:
None
Identify Major Learning Goals:
This site provides a resource set for teachers, including experiment handouts.
Target Student Population:
parents, teachers, and students in grades 6th through 8th (middle school). The site is a great resource for the home-schooled population.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Some material may require the most basic knowledge of the subject but in general, as it is aimed for middle school, there is no requirement.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Vast collection of links and materials. Organized efficiently by subject matter: geology, astronomy, chemistry and physics. There are clear lesson plans and detailed set up instructions for teachers.
Concerns:
The teacher has an incorrect (though very common) statement regarding hypothesis (that it is a prediction). This must be fixed. As expected of such a large collection, some of the links no longer work.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
A wide range of middle school science experiments is presented. This could be helpful to those teachers who do not already have a prescribed curriculum. Teaching objectives are very tightly defined and well defined. There is a good emphasis on independent, dependent, and control variables.
Concerns:
The quality of the individual entities is uneven. Furthermore, there is a requirement for the download of powerpoints. Teachers are not likely to do this because of security concerns.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The site has a central navigation menu and is relatively easy to navigate through.
Concerns:
The style of links and connection points is very uneven. There are different fonts, different font sizes, different colors etc. This site could do with a consistent style arrangement.
Creative Commons:
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