"The Important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
Translation of Materials / Spring Branch Middle School
TAKS Information / Email / Brandwein Leadership Institute / Resume / Grants and Projects for Teachers /Return To Mars Liftoff 2000 / Rice University's Space Science for Teachers /Grants and Scholarships for College
Homework assignments, tests, projects and subjects for the nine weeks can be found at School Notes
Science Explorer 8th grade textbook
Need some help? Take a look
Classroom Environmental Studies
Students Interview Dr. Richard B. Alley, glaciologist,
Pennsylvania State University.
The website IT Conversation states that he hypothesizes that the climate moves by staggering up and down. He displays a chart that shows during the Ice Age, the temperature staggered but the CO2 level changed rather smoothly. Possible conclusion: Now that CO2 is rising again, we should perhaps expect big swings in temperature.
Come Ice or High Water: How Will Global Warming Affect Antarctic Ice Sheets and Sea Levels?
by Dr. David Vaughan
Glaciologist, British Antarctic SurveyPresenter's BiosketchLIVE WEBCAST WITH DR. DAVID VAUGHAN
Dr. David VaughanDr. Vaughan is the principal investigator for British Antarctic Survey Core Program: Glacial Retreat of Antarctica and Deglaciation of the Earth System (GRADES). The opportunity to define and lead this program was won through open competition. GRADES will employ between 12 and 20 staff and focus on aspects of past and future deglaciation as drivers of change in the Earth System.
In 2006 Dr. Vaughan was made Honorary Professor in the School of the Environment and Society, University of Wales, Swansea.
What that Water Please! 2005-2006
Texas Watch is a network of trained volunteers and supportive partners working together to gather information about the natural resources of Texas and to ensure the information is available to all Texans. Established in 1991, Texas Watch is administered through a cooperative partnership between Texas State University, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Currently, over 400 Texas Watch volunteers collect water quality data on lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, bays bayous, and estuaries in Texas.
Bug Scope at University of Illinois
Canyon Middle School students ran an Electron Microscope from the classroom and the photo collection can be seen on the Bug Scope web site. The Mosquito specimens were collected in the Fall of 2005 from standing water around students' homes. Each specimen was sent to Bug Scope at University of Illinois where etymologist helped to identify the specimens. The etymologist were asked if the mosquitoes were the type that carry the West Nile Virus. The scientist answered that it could not be determined if the specimen did or did not carry the West Nile Virus without a blood sample from the mosquito.
What is El Nino and La Nina have to do with Texas Weather?
Most children are fascinated at the miracle of life. The avian embryo is an amazing and exciting project that allows children an opportunity to see the miracle of life. In only three weeks, a small clump of cells with no characteristic features of any single animal species changes into an active, newly hatched chick. A study of this transformation is educational and interesting, and gives us insight into how humans are formed.
Several students through the years have designed projects that science students do in the classroom. Maegan Fretwell is one of those students. She raises rabbits and has noticed how the babies sometimes look like the mother and other time look like the father and other times is a combination of the two. Maegan's idea was to introduce the science classes to the parent rabbits, making sure everyone observes the traits of each rabbit. The rabbits are returned home and the results of the mating will be seen a few weeks later. The science classes infer which traits are dominate and which ones are recessive and how the baby rabbits may look. Past experiences with crossing the rabbits are on the "Bunny Genetics" web site. The gentics project will continue with new photos of the breeding will be shown when the babies become available.
The Class of '97 Bean and Ozone Project
After attending GirlTech and The Global Change workshop, this page and the lab design were produced. Dr. Daniel Jacob of Harvard presented ground level ozone information at CalTech and helped the students with the design by email. Sally Ride was the person that was responsible for the Global Change Workshop and encouraged teachers to work with the scientists from CalTech and around the world.Ground Level Ozone Testing
Students will field test ground level ozone from the module "Ozone in Our Atmosphere" developed by Project LEARN teachers at the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR), in Boulder, Colorado.
BugScope Butterfly Images! We were researching the effects of ground level ozone in our area. My students had noticed a decrease in Monarch Butterflies and we feel that it may be as a result of the photochemical smog. We raise the butterflies and went through the metamorphosis with them. The images of the butterfly produced by Bugscope could be displayed along with the study. Our desire is to make our website as interactive as possible for the students and also for anyone who would like to join us.
Class Project '97 / Class Project '98 / Class Project '99 / Kari's Earth Care / Learn Not To Burn! Dinos To Ducks / BugScope Mosquito and Crane Fly Images! /Greenhouse Gases & STUDENT WORK! /PowerPoint Lesson / Element Project / Air Pollution Survey
These pages were developed through GirlTECH '96,
a teacher training and student technology
council program sponsored by the
Center for Excellence and Equity in Educationa
Bunny Genetics