This is a course that I taught once at Ahlul-Bayt Islamic School.  It follows the Ontario curriculum and units include:

 

• Understanding Life Systems: Interactions in the Environment,

• Understanding Structures and Mechanisms: Form and Function,

• Understanding Matter and Energy: Pure Substances and Mixtures, and

• Understanding Earth and Space Systems: Heat in the Environment.

 

I enjoyed teaching this course, but I know that if I were to  teach it again I would do it a lot differently. Much of the curriculum is one step up from content students have learned in previous grades, and if I were to teach it again I would seek out some more challenging extension activities and projects.    

 

These students were very active and I tried to embrace that by having them do group activities where they were moving around and - ideally - competing against each other in some way.  I love finding activities that teach a particular topic but also allow students to learn or practice another skill as well.  For example, I used the heat unit to teach students the aspects of an effective PowerPoint presentation.  Click the buttons below for some extra information about each activity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ecological Relationships Skits: In this activity, students had to create a group skit to demonstrate an assigned ecological relationship to the class (i.e. mutualism, parasitism, commensalism, or predation).  They had to incorporate a certain number of vocabulary terms that had been studied and also submitted a written script of their skit.  The results were phenomenal and allowed me to see another side of their personalities!  

 

Separating Milk Lab Activity: I did this simple experiment as part of the Pure Substances and Mixtures unit.  Students observed what happened to milk when vinegar was added to it and then had to do some research to answer some other hypothetical questions.  The students enjoyed getting some hands-on experience with real science. 

 

Newspaper bridge competition: I adapted this activity from sciencespot.net and it was perfect for my competitive, restless class!  Each group was given nothing but newspaper and a limited amount of tape, and they had to build a bridge that was at least 3 feet long and a certain distance off the floor.  Each bridge was tested by adding textbooks one by one until it collapsed.   

 

Heat PowerPoint Project: Although a PowerPoint presentation is not typically a very interesting assignment, most of my students had not yet done one in grade 7.  I gave each pair of students a question related to the curriculum (i.e. Why does popcorn pop? What is the greenhouse effect?  How is heat related to ocean currents? How is heat connected to thunderstorms?) and they had to create a presentation for the class.  I guided them through the aspects of good presentation with a checklist and peer editing. The students enjoyed learning a new skill while studying science.