Blog

When you look at the students in your class as they are working and learning, what are you preparing them for?  Too often, we focus on preparing our students for whatever grade is “next” for them.  We...

The Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council is now accepting applications for the STEM BEST (Business Engaging Students and Teachers) Program, which brings schools and businesses together to provide students with real workplace experiences. The program helps students...

Much of Iowa has had some beautiful natural views the past few days.  The weather conditions have provided us with some breathtaking landscapes and amazing scenery with “frost” covered trees and bushes.  Hopefully, you have been able...

The Central Rivers AEA science consultants hosted our first remote challenge for middle school and high school teams in which they were tasked with building a table entirely out of newspaper. The teams had the following constraints,...

We’ve all heard the saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”  However, as a dog owner (I have 5!) I have come to realize that this is absolutely not true.  While we might not often...

Recently while attending a Corwin webinar on The Distance Learning Playbook, author Doug Fisher said something that really highlights the importance of providing students with depth and complexity over recall. During that webinar, Doug said, “If a...

Central Rivers science consultants have been hosting the Paper Roller Coaster Challenge since 2017 and have been able to offer it in a rotation at all three of our office locations.  The intent of the Paper Roller...

In a commencement address at Western New England University in 2012, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson provided this parable…students are asked to give the correct spelling of the word “cat.”  One student spells it correctly as “C-A-T”. The...

I was reflecting on my cell phone the other day… yes, this really is my cell phone – from 1996.  This was the first cell phone I owned when I was just starting my teaching career. At...