
We mapped out beliefs, behaviors, and a rubric for growth mindset, resolve, integrity, and tenacity (GRIT: because in teaching, everything’s an acronym!) and consideration, appreciation, responsibility, and empathy (CARE). Thus, a group of our National Board Certified Teachers met regularly for a year to research best practices and come up with some sort of tool for explicitly teaching and assessing those skills. Our district has talked about adopting a curriculum to teach social emotional skills, but we haven’t quite reached that point yet. That’s why, when educator Caroline Foster recently shared her original approach to social studies with, I was immediately taken. What I do hope to impart, aside from a basic curiosity about the world and our place in it, are the kind of skills that make happy, healthy, meaningful, and engaged citizens later in life. Teaching middle school, I suffer no illusions that many of the basic facts I teach my students – about the wondrous achievements of the Inca, the five pillars of Islam, or the grotesque netherworld of Potosi – will be long forgotten by adulthood.

It’s easy to forget what the “social” in social studies means – that is, people relating to each other. Caroline Foster, rock star educator (Right Click to Save)
#Easy class bingo human download#
Then download the leaves page and one of the following tree files.Here’s an activity with life-changing, earth-shaking power – Empathy in Action Bingo: Empathy in Action Bingo by Ms. We do not believe there is any reason for teachers to be concerned about the toxicity of PTC taste papers. Assuming a linear dose response curve, we calculate that the 230 mg of NaCl in a vending machine bag of potato chips is about 100 times more toxic than the 0.007 mg of PTC in a taste paper. indicate that “a single strip contains about 0.3 mg” but the two suppliers we checked with indicate that a taste paper contains either 0.007 mg (Carolina Biological Supply Company) or 0.005 - 0.007 mg (ScienceStuff). The issue is how much PTC is on a taste paper. There is no question that PTC is toxic (LD50 in rat is 3mg/kg, in mouse 10mg/kg, and in rabbit 40mg/kg), but so is table salt (acute toxicity in humans at 500-1000mg/kg). To put the toxicity of PTC into perspective, we offer this quote (from Merritt et al., Am. In addition, there has not been a single report of toxicity arising from PTC taste testing, which has been performed on tens of millions of individuals worldwide. And the amount that is licked off the paper by a test subject is much less than this. A single test paper from Carolina Biological Supply contains just 0.007 mg of PTC. However, PTC is so intensely bitter that tasters can detect it in miniscule quantities. In rats, the most sensitive animals tested, the oral LD50 of PTC (the amount that killed 50% of test animals) is 3 mg/kg. This has led to PTC being banned from many schools and districts - we believe unnecessarily. has raised an alarm in the teaching community about the usefulness and safety of PTC taste testing. The 2004 publication Investigating Safety: A Guide for High School Teachers by Texley et al. Traits that are inherited and traits that are learned or passed on through Students and their families play a matching game with cards to identify The DNA strips to complete a drawing of a dog. Randomly choosing strips of paper that represent DNA, then 2) decoding Students learn that differences in DNA lead to different traits by: 1)


(Note: Individuals inįamilies do not need to be related to participate in this activity.)

Students distinguish between inherited and learned traits by creatingĪ "family tree of traits" using handprints. In response to questions about their traits. In this review activity, students cross off or color bingo squares Through three generations of ginger-bread people. Students track and record the passage of colored "pom-pom traits" (Note: individuals in families do not need to be related to participate Students use game cards to inventory the traits in their family. Students find the most and least common combination of traits in the classīy marking their traits for tongue rolling, earlobe attachment, and PTC Traits included in An Inventory of My Traits. Students take an inventory of their own easily-observable genetic traitsĪnd compare those inventories with other students in groups. Please see each individual activity for implementation instructions, suggestions for adaptations and extensions, and applicable standards. Below is a suggested sequence for implementing the activities contained in the unit.
