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We like the power and the potential of PASCO USB probes
(so cool! so blue!) to make probeware and the accompanying concepts accessible
to very young children, as well as older children. In fact, there's no reason
why their simple temperature probe wouldn't find a home in any kindergarten
classroom. Check out their website while you're waiting on us: www.pasco.com
Science has always been one of the tools that I've
found most useful to engage students, especially those who have been turned
off by schooling or who are dealing with life issues that sends learning
way down on the priority list or who have gotten into a habit of passivity
when it comes to learning. There doesn't seem to be a group that incorporating
science doesn't work for - or an age group! I've used science to teach reading,
math, social studies, just about anything. I'm not a science teacher. I am
interested in any tool I can get my hands on that can engage students and
science works!
In thinking about the students with whom I've worked and the situations
where I've taught, I've wondered how much more improvement I might have
had with the students if I'd had access to tools like the PASCO probes and
the supporting materials available from PASCO "back in those days." The
section of our site focusing on PASCO will talk about ideas we want to share,
resources, and tools. Again, we are approaching this on the basis of an
on-going conversation. For those of you who are familiar with PASCO and
know that they have traditionally been focused on middle school and up in
terms of their support materials, don't let that stop you. A number of these
tools can easily be incorporated all the way down to kindergarten. As time
goes on, we'll try and provide some of those links for you.
You're also going to notice that we will combine the PASCO probes with
multimedia authoring tools, such as eZediaMX, Inspiration for concept mapping,
ArcView for spatial relationships, digital artifacts such as pictures, sounds,
and video and resources from the Internet. We don't need tons and tons of
separate tools. We do need access to good tools that we can recombine in
multiple ways. For guidance on how to accomplish this, the National Science
Standards are a handy guide.
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