This course covers a huge amount of information and provide students with a good overview of the areas of science that they might want to focus on in upcoming years.  I have taught it three times at the Canadian College Italy.  It is laid out by the Ontario curriculum and units include:

 

• Biology: Tissues, Organs, and Systems of Living Things,

• Chemistry: Chemical Reactions,

• Earth and Space Science: Climate Change, and

• Physics: Light and Geometric Optics.

 

Since this is a general science course that all students have to take, I have found that different students are drawn to different topics.  Each time that I have taught this, I have ended up finding supplemental activities or information for areas of student interest that year.  I have found some excellent NOVA documentaries that complement the chemistry and physics unit, and I very successfully incorporated literacy into the biology unit by having students write a reflective essay on a movie that gave a very interesting overview of the human body as it ages.   

 

This course also lends itself nicely to small lab activities. I have done an osmosis experiment, dissections of cow lungs and hearts, activities observing reflections in concave and convex mirrors, and the regular incorporation of games to solidify vocabulary and concepts. This year, I had several ELL students in the course and opted to provide content using an interactive student notebook.  It worked well for my situation and it ensured that students were engaged at all times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interactive Student Notebooks: This year, I chose to tackle the course via an interactive student notebook as I have found the content lends itself very nicely to interactive notes and activities that include foldables and graphic organizers.  I had several English Language Learners in the course, but I found that this level of differentation works for everyone.  

 

Biology Reflective Essay: I always love finding ways to bring literacy into science, and in this course I do this by assigning a reflective essay.  In class, we watch the National Geographic movie "In the Human Body" and students were asked to select three concepts from the film and summarize and reflect on them.  I provided a graphic organizer to guide their thinking through the movie.   

 

Dissections: I have always taught this course in Italy where I do not have access to preserved specimens for dissection.  In order to give students hands-on connections to the real world, I have befriended a local butcher who provides various organs including hearts, lungs, brains, liver, and eyes.  I use this as an opportunity to review what we've learned as well as having students make and record both qualitative and quantitative observations. These dissections were so successful that students initiated a Dissection Club that I supervised the following semester.

 

Charades: I strongly believe in making lessons fun and I have a game day every few weeks as a way to review content and vocabulary.  A classic game for vocabulary is charades or reverse charades, which I have found to be an excellent way to make new words stick in kids' brains.  They will inevitably think the task of acting out science words is impossible, but it ends up being engaging, hilarious, and effective. I will often have older students on their spares ask to join my current classes for these activities because they have so much fun.

 

Element Podcast: My big project for the Chemistry unit of this course is a radio podcast on an element of the student's choosing.  I love this project because it incporporates research skills, communication skills, literacy, creativity, and technology.  Students prepare a 4-6 minute radio show that must address a variety of topics regarding an element (ex: how it was discovered, what would happen if it were to disappear from earth, an interesting story associated with the element) that must also inlude sound effects, music, and chemistry-related commercials.  

 

Mirrors Lab: This is a very simple, frequently used activity for students to explore how images form in a concave mirror.  Students work in pairs to make observations about how a candle flame's reflection alters depending on their position relative to the mirror.  Simple - but it gets them out of their seats and gets their minds actively engaged in optics.