Lesson Plan for Thursday September 6, 2012

Good morning everyone. I decided to change things up today, so we will continue our discussion on behavior on Friday. Today's topics are going to be looking more in depth at scientific inquiry (even though the tutorial says scientific method) and setting up your blogs (which is actually going to partially act as the "publish your findings" portion of scientific inquiry.

Several housekeeping items before you get started. First, the unit one wiki/sharesite is completely stocked with all of the resources you will need to be successful throughout the ecology unit. Remember to put @sparta.lan at the end of your user name.

Additionally, your goal should be to have chapters 50 & 51 read by the end of the weekend.

Here's the plan for today's block:

1. Complete the textbook quality inventory sheet.

2. Subscribe by email to the blog. Put your email address in the box at the top and click submit. You can also choose to become a follower.

3. Create your blog. There are many free blog providers out there including www.blogger.com, www.edublogs.com, www.wordpress.com (this requires you to download free software so may not be the best option if you work on this at school), www.weebly.com, Google apps (available from the school website under "Other Information", or others that you can find by a simple google search. If you have a GMail account, blogger is my preference as it comes with your Google account and it is relatively easy to use. Google apps is a safe one that requires no signing up as you already have an account as a Sparta student. Please don't hesitate to ask for help with getting this setup.

• Your blog can be as fancy as you want it to be. You can jazz it up similar to the ones I use for my classes or you can use the basic formats that are provided.
• Create your first blog entry. The topic for your entry should be as follows, and should be written in a paragraph format (don't just answer the questions):
• Brief introduction of yourself (interests, career aspirations, etc.)
• Why are you taking this course?
• What do you hope to get out of this course?
• Include a picture of some sort that relates to your posting.
• Send me an email (mrlandryshs@gmail.com) that includes the URL to your blog so I can link it to my blog.

4. Go the following website tutorial on the "scientific method" and complete the tutorial and then the experiment activity. http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/biology/glacier/scientific_method/

5. Check out all of the materials available on the learn site (wiki). Look for the link on this blog.

6. Find a good book to read during reading time for the next several weeks, unless you prefer to read your AP Biology :)

Have a good day everyone. Be ready for behavior on Friday as well as some more scientific inquiry review for biology I. Chapter 50 will be covered in class on Monday.