The SMILE Program @ OSU

We love seeing updates and pictures from the activities SMILE has created. Forest Grove High School was nice enough to share with us the progress of their poplar trees that they received during the 2014 Winter Teacher’s Workshop. Students in this club are taking measurements every week. See for yourself their growing trees:

The SMILE club at Forest Grove High School was nice enough to share with us their pictures of them planting their poplar samplings.  We encourage you to start planting soon and we look forward to exchanging data in the future.  Remember earlier in the term we shared with you a lesson plan as well as a video to help your students learn about bioenergy.  Happy planting!

During the 2014 Winter Teacher’s Workshop, participants learned about StreamWebs, an online database that provides teachers, students, and community partners with a multimedia showcase for watershed stewardship projects.  StreamWebs provides a variety of resources that support student monitoring efforts including: sampling equipment, field support, and curriculum.  To learn more about StreamWebs click HERE.

Using K’NEX, solar panels, and potatoes to harness energy, Emily Nicholson, with Pre-College Programs at Oregon State University, shared creative ways to Harness Energy in the Classroom during the 2014 Winter Teacher’s Workshop. You can find the activities that she shared along with many others by clicking HERE.

As an addition to the schoolyard geology activities that were shared in Matt Nyman’s session during the Winter 2014 SMILE Teacher’s Workshop, here is a 4-lesson unit on Earth Science that can be done in the classroom.

Lesson 1 – Earth Layers

This lesson explores Earth, and it’s layers.  Students will be able to construct their own mini Earths according to different layers.

Lesson 2 – Plate Tectonics

Students will be able to explore the plates and their boundaries of the Earth. This lesson serves to explain how earthquakes and volcanoes come to be.

Lesson 3 – Earthquakes

This lesson explores earthquakes, how they happen, and how to stay safe.

Lesson 4 – Volcanoes

Students will explore the different Pacific Northwest volcanoes and get the opportunity to construct their own volcanoes.

GreenWood Resources, home to the largest drip irrigation farm in the world, was nice enough to provide our workshop attendees with several varieties of poplar saplings.  With these saplings we ask that you and your students plant them and conduct your own growth experiment.  Here we have provided for you a lesson plan as well as planting instructions for your trees.  We would like to see data about your sapling’s progress and we will provide a way to share that data in the near future. Enjoy!

Our cable car curriculum keeps expanding and we are happy to share with you more lessons in this PowerPoint from the SMILE Teacher’s Workshop.  Included in the slides are customer requirements and design elements that will help with the Middle School Challenge.  This would be a great lesson plan to show middle school students to get them motivated and inspired!