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SCIENCE RESOURCESFOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS |
The Space Place (in English). This NASA site includes facts, activities for students to do, and things to make. It is a little broader than the name implies,including such important questions as why two eyes are better than one. It all relates to space in some way.
The Space Place (en Español) incluye
| Biologia - High School Biology - This is an unusual site from Spain where the site is in Spanish but some of the animations are in English. For example, this page has animations of DNA transcription, making messenger RNA (mRNA) with explanations of each slide in English.It also has simpler animations, some of which are in Spanish. The illustration on the left, of a bacteria making insulin (una bacteria fabricando insulina) is one example. If you go here, you can actually download the whole Biologia web site to your computer. |
Virtual Frog Dissection pages are available on this site. You can also click on the languages link on this page and it will take you to the identical information in Spanish, German, Dutch, Czech, Italian or Portugese. The site is easy to use, easy to understand, interesting and useful for schools or students who cannot do live frog dissection for budgetary, personal or hygiene reasons. Don't kill the poor frog! Go here!
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION This web site is highly recommended for its conceptual framework, guidelines for effective environmental education for English Language Learners and its highly creative activities. Not only are the ingenious activities excellent for promoting critical thinking and teaching accurate and current scientific information, but they are also guided by a coherent conceptual framework. Project Learning Tree is a program of the American Forest Foundation. |
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| The Exchange Box, a detailed sample activity can be found here.
The 'exchange box' is a good way to think more about your own region and learn about another part of the country as well. Students fill a box with items that represent their local environment and exchange these with a classroom in a different region. The site also includes a number of examples of lesson plans using this activity and correlates those to standards. |
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| Don't miss their free 40-page report on English language development theory and practices: Background for Environmental Education providers. It is a downloadable PDF file found at the bottom of their curriculum page. |
WATER EDUCATION for TEACHERS: On this web page you will find curriculum and activity guides that correlate water education with state standards in English/Language Arts, History/Social Science and Science. Although this website offers research-based instuctional materials consistent with state standards, I was unsure whether to include it because its one weakness for our purposes is that it does not specifically address English Language Learners. However, a large proportion of ELL students are California natives, and Project WET does include a page on California Issues which IS the culture, environment and native country of many ELLs. There are a few very low-cost items (from twenty cents to ten dollars) in Spanish that can be ordered from the website. They are not listed by language, so you will need to look at the area you are interested, e.g, maps and posters, and see what is available in Spanish. A large selection of English materials is available in English as well.
Project WILD and Aquatic WILD are discussed on the California Department of Fish and Game website. You will find some sample activities on their website, as well as correlations with state standards, schedules of workshops and other general information. Much more information, along with a couple of other sample activities can be found at the national Project WILD website.
I am biased. My family is from South America and I think the rain forest is amazing. This free rain forest site from abcteach.com includes everything from photos, to graphic organizers, to worksheets and reflective questions. I like it because it fits with my concept of science, even for young children, as something you think about, not just memorize. I also liked the "Make your room a rain forest" activity.
Units for teaching science and mathematics to English learners. Resources you can use from the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University.
Intel Education site - when last checked had over 100 lesson plans with specific adaptations recommended for English learners. Go to the Intel site and type in "English learner" in the search field. Click here for an example using biomes, complete with two presentations for Powerpoint, also available in PDF format. Tip: Be sure you use "English learner" as the search term. If you type in "bilingual" you will only find less than half of the relevant lesson plans.
The Electronic Journal of Literacy Through Science. This on-line journal gives specific units, lesson plans and concepts for teaching literacy through science, all with a research base. Best of all, it is free, fitting easily into the budget for classroom supplies and professional development.
| The Eduhound en Español website section on animals is a great place to find resources in Spanish for research papers. Unlike some of their other sections (e.g., Mathematics), the links in the animals section covered a very broad age range. I also liked the fact that it has links from around the world. It links to this site, from the Argentina Association of Feline Medicine (Asociacion Argentina de Medicina Felina), for example, which includes everything you could possibly ever ask about cats! There is a very well done page on endangered animals in Puerto Rico and a wide variety of other sites on everything from dogs to fleas. |
