Tag Archives: science literacy

Menagerie (n)

Here is a context clues worksheet on the noun menagerie. If you’re planning a trip to the zoo, that would be a good time to teach students this nice solid noun. In any case, it is a word students ought to know by the time they walk the boards at their graduation ceremony.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

A Lesson Plan on the Big Bang Sequence from The Order of Things

OK, folks, there is a lot of traffic on Mark’s Text Terminal today (which is cool!), so I’ll publish one more post before moving on to other things for the afternoon. From Barbara Anne Kipfer’s fascinating book (to me, anyway), The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on the Big Bang sequence along with its reading and comprehension worksheet.

This is a relatively short exercise. However, like just about everything here, these are Microsoft Word documents, so you may manipulate them for your students’ needs.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Word Root Exercise: Lith/o

Here is a worksheet on the Greek word root lith/o. It means stone and rock. Simple enough, and useful if you happen to be teaching geology in particular or earth science in general.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Cultural Literacy: Epidemic

The other day, I set aside a group of Cultural Literacy worksheets that I think are timely, and arguably ought to be in front of students–or at least something like them that present important concepts that might inform thinking about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship in this difficult time.

Ergo, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on the concept of an epidemic. And that’s it.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

X-Rays

Years ago, when I worked in a school that had a cooperative career and technical education (CTE) program, I served students either in such a program or on their way to one. I developed this reading on x-rays and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet for students interested in becoming x-ray technicians.

Then I never used it. For one thing, it is highly technical with a lot of relatively advanced scientific vocabulary. As the years went by the CTE program slipped away, and any modifications I might have performed to make this material more readable while making it more comprehensive went with the program.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Thomas Henry Huxley Defines Science

“Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense only so far as the guardsman’s cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”

Thomas Henry Huxley

On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences” (1854)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Word Root Exercise: Arium, Orium and Ary

Can you use this worksheet on the Latin word roots arium, orium and ary? They mean, simply, “a place for.” When you consider words like aquarium, emporium, and aviary, you begin to see just how productive this word root is in English.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Word Root Exercise: Aqua

Here is a worksheet on the Latin word root aqua. Do I need to tell you it means water? It is an extremely productive root in English as well as the all the Romance languages.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

A Lesson Plan on the Order of Tooth Arrival and Growth from The Order of Things

From Barbara Ann Kipfer’s The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on the arrival and growth of teeth. You’ll need the reading with comprehension questions to complete this short reading and writing exercise, which, like all 50 of these lessons that I will eventually post here, is intended to help struggling learners experience mastery and therefore build self-confidence and competence in school.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Epidemic (n), Pandemic (n)

Since I can’t imagine any reason I need to stress the importance of an understanding of and an ability to use these words, now more than ever, I’ll post this context clues worksheet on the noun epidemic and this one on the noun pandemic without editorial comment.

However, a note on usage on epidemic and pandemic seems de rigueur. Differentiating the use of these two nouns is as easy as understanding their Greek roots: epi means on, upon, outside, over, among, at, after, to, and can best be understood, as some of those prepositions connote, as local; pan (along with panto) simply means all, and can best be understood, in our current circumstances, as meaning everywhere, as all connotes.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.