Do You FOSS?? A Cool Science Resource

Since going back into the classroom last year, I have learned that I really enjoy teaching Science.  It's interesting, messy, and I'm able to incorporate all kinds of speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.  Lucky for me, my teaching buddy, Casey, loves to teach Social Studies, so we team teach these subjects.  (You might remember this earlier post, talking about team-teaching reading and math, but we still haven't decided.)

Anywhoo... back to Science.  We don't have textbooks; we have kits for each Science unit.  Students learn through guided explorations, and document our thinking and demonstrate understanding through Science Notebooks.  One of our units is Air and Weather, from FOSS.  In the kit, we have a Science reader, called Air and Weather, which helps reinforce the essential concepts.  Here's what they look like:

Best part... FOSS offers the audio for all of their Science readers online and on itunes-u.  Really.

Source

Here's the o-my-gosh-that-is-so-cool-idea that I heard at my meeting earlier this week...  print a QR code for each (you know, those funny little black and white squares that you can scan with an ipod or smartphone), and tape it in the inside front cover of the book.

Here's the QR code for Air and Weather

When a student wants to listen to it, they can scan it with an iwhatever (ipod, iphone, ipad, etc) to go straight to the free download and listen along with the book.  Nifty!  Great resource for my english language learners or students with special needs to participate in the curriculum-driven science reader along with the rest of the class.  Now, I just need to get my own ipods/ipads for my class...  ;)
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