I have a new post ready to go on my new site tonight!  Hope to see you there!

Looks like Science is the glue that holds all else together for me. I wonder how my Wordle might change next year…

A few weeks back, Brian C. Smith tagged me for the Passion Quilt Meme and I’ve finally completed my task. I took this image last fall when I was out with a group of 5th graders practicing several science process skills (communicating, measuring, observing, and classifying) while exploring the Hojack Trail right behind our school.

My passion is science, namely problem-based learning, and this requires students to be able to take the lead for their learning. They need to explore their world beyond the classroom, be up-front and active, work with others, problem-solve, and sometimes take the longer path to reach their destination. They need to develop the skills to become self-directed learners so they can continue to explore topics of interest throughout their lives.

Directions: Find or create an image that captures what you are most passionate for kids to learn about.

• Post a picture from a source like Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

Here are the lucky people I’m tagging:

JoAnna Sero
Erin Ells
Larry Wirth
MaryAnn Sansonetti
Dave Sherman

First, from Brian Crosby, is his post, Write It! Brian shares a writing strategy that he has found to be successful with his students. Any ideas on how you could modify this to meet the needs of your students?

Next, here’s a link to make you think about our society, environment, and the role we play. Read Will Richardson’s post, Our Individual Role. Just to think further about environmental issues, according to the Container Recycling Institute, three billion non-carbonated beverage containers are sold in New York State annually. The NYS DEC states that Americans purchased nearly 31 billion bottles of water in 2006 and spend $11 billion on bottled water. Imagine the images we’d see with these statistics.

Our wasteful use of our natural resources is actually the basis for a year-long problem-based learning experience, Going Green Globally, to begin next fall. Look for future posts seeking other schools worldwide to collaborate with on this important issue. If you already know you are interested in exploring this topic in-depth with your students and working with others to initiate changes, please let me know.

Sylvia Martinez shares her Meme, Web 2.0 version of a chain letter, on the topic of what she is most passionate for kids to learn about.

Sylvia called out Brian to create his Meme on the same topic. 

Brian called out me.  Mine will be coming soon.  I know there must be some teachers here at Klem South who love this sort of thing.  Want to join the fun?   

Click here to listen in on their conversation. (If anyone can help me embed the audio file into this blog, that would be great.)

Gabcast could be used within the MST PORTAL. Several times I’ve had students talk to “experts” on our class phone and have just used the speaker phone so all could hear. After the conversation we would capture what we could remember in writing. Saving the conversation as an mp3 file would be so much easier as it would provide an opportunity for the students to replay the file and document the discussion more accurately. Now I need to wait for the right opportunity to try it out.

As our year begins I can only wonder what opportunities, celebrations, changes, and challenges will await us.  No matter what the weather it is always great to be at “Sunny Klem South!”