It's almost time for me to start planning out my first week of school (yes it's crazy, I go back end of July). When I first started teaching, I spent the first week reviewing the syllabus, class rules, and (duh duh duh duhhhhh) spent time reviewing all the lab safety procedures. It just felt like the responsible science teacher thing to do. What I soon realized is the students were just plain bored... or nervous about finding their next class.... or thinking about who has the same lunch period as them... but they were NOT memorizing all those nice lab safety rules I was so carefully explaining. They are also reviewing rules in almost every other class and the chances of them remembering what you said those first few days are slim.  So I decided to throw the "let's front-load all the rules that they will forget anyway" out the window and find more exciting activities for that first week.

I know some of you science teachers reading this are thinking "But I have to review rules the first week, because they need to sign a lab safety contract!" Yes, they do. (And if you don't have one handy, I recommend Flinn Science's contracts which you can download free here.) But is it really necessary the first few days? Here is my main argument on why you are wasting your time: Why are you teaching students to wear goggles and keep scalpels pointed down during dissections if you aren't actually getting to the dissection until April? Or why are you teaching them the proper way to carry and store a microscope when the microscopes don't come out of the cupboard until your cells unit in December? Students will just forget, and you will have to review the rules all over again anyway. Instead, wait until you get to the lab and then review the necessary rules. As far as the contract goes, have students read through it during class or at home with a parent and sign it. If they have any questions feel free to discuss them, but don't waste too much time on it. Here are a few ideas to do instead:

• Do a fun lab that doesn't have hazardous materials. For biology, a great lab to start with is a characteristics of life lab, or have them plant popcorn kernels and see if they grow (even high school students will be amazed by this simple little kernel.... trust me).
• Find a fun activity where you can get to know your students better. Maybe it is a "find someone who" activity, fun icebreakers, or a questionnaire, but I've found that students really appreciate it when you get to know them on a personal level.
• Set up interactive notebooks. If you have a team of teachers that teach the same subject as you, make sure you set them up the same way in case students get the inevitable schedule change.
• If you teach biology, bring in some living organisms (such as pill bugs or meal worms) and have students look at them under the stereoscopes.
• Another fun non-hazardous lab is the firework milk lab. Here is a video showing the lab and you can also find the worksheet in my TpT store.
• Find a memory/perception activity from this website or show this Monkey Business Illusion video. A lot of the time science is based on observations, but how good are we at actually making those observations?
• For younger grades, you might enjoy this freebie demo from my store. All you need is a 2L bottle, water, and tape. Easy!
• If you teach high school, don't spend too much time on the scientific method. They should already know it! Instead, focus more on the nature of science. Here is a great freebie from Utah Root's store about identifying bias and "how to spot bad science."

Long story short: front-loading material too early is a waste of your time. Have fun the first week! Get your students excited about science! (because let's face it, we teach the best content area!)

Whew! You made it to the end of the year! (insert happy dance here). The last week of school all most teachers have on their mind is posting grades and summer vacation. Buutttttt….. I’m here to give you a few tips on things you can do NOW to make your job easier in August. Those few days you have before school starts are precious, and you know most of it will be taken up by PD and meetings. The line at the copy center is huge. You have to make new seating charts and print new IEP's. The list goes on and on. So here are a few end of the year tips that will hopefully make your life easier when it is time to go back to school.

1. Depending on your school, you might have to take everything off the walls and clean out your classroom at the end of the year. Thankfully we don’t have to do this unless we are moving rooms or they are painting the walls, neither of which apply to me this year (thank goodness). However, I still like to go through and throw out or shred papers that I’ve been hanging on to all year. Hard copies of student IEP’s and bubble sheets from district tests are forms that don’t need to be taking up space in my file cabinet anymore. It’s easier to clean out the file cabinet now so you don’t have to worry about it later (especially since the custodial staff will be coming around to pick up trash and recycling over the summer).
2. Are there forms you know you will be using next year? Worksheets you use all year long? For me, I use the same bell work and note taking forms throughout the year. I suggest making a class set of those forms now, because the line at the copier will not be pretty right before school starts. Stash them in a drawer somewhere so you have one less thing to copy before school starts.
3. Do you have some pretty task cards or posters you purchased on TpT and would like them laminated? Back to school time seems to be the time most teachers buy new posters and pick out a new theme for their classroom the following year. Our library will laminate things for us, but it often takes days to weeks to get things back when they are super busy in August. If you have those things ready to go, get them laminated now (the librarian will thank you later).
4. Do you need glassware cleaned or organized? Do you want your mini whiteboards waxed and ready to go for next year? Any cleaning you've been avoiding? Many high school students need community service hours for programs such as National Honor Society or AVID. Instead of breaking your back to get these things done, have students help and offer them community service hours! It’s a win-win.
5. Many schools offer teachers a district web page. When is the last time you updated it? If you are teaching any new classes next year, have any change in contact information, or any new pictures to add, do it now! One less thing to do in August.
6. Lastly, take a quick inventory of what supplies you have left over from the year. Most of us spend quite a bit of money during back-to-school sales on folders, pencils, tape, markers, etc. without realizing that you still have plenty of pencils left over from the previous year. Take pictures of what you have left or add a note in your phone so you have it handy when you head to Target.

It's the beginning of the year, and chances are you are starting off teaching or reviewing the scientific method. If you've looked around on the internet for scientific method labs, you will notice that the majority are not biology related. Don't get me wrong- building paper airplanes, measuring bubbles, and seeing how many water drops can fit on the surface of a penny are fun labs, but not directly related to biology. In my class I want students to understand from the get-go that we are learning about living things, so I want my first lab to reflect that. Here are a few labs that can start your year off right:

1. Pulse Lab- This is a great lab because there are almost no supplies required other than a stopwatch. In this lab students measure their resting pulse, and compare it to their pulse standing up and holding their breath. It is a great way for students to practice writing hypotheses, and identifying independent and dependent variables. Before beginning the lab I start with a class discussion about what your pulse is, why blood needs to be pumped through the body, and where blood cells are made.

2. Firework Milk Lab- I have seen this lab done at ALL ages. Even preschool teachers love this lab. But the beauty of this lab is that high school students still love it, and they can finally start to understand the concept behind the fun swirling colors.  In this lab students pour milk into a petri dish, add some food coloring, and put a drop of soap in the middle of the dish. Once the soap enters the dish the food coloring starts swirling and creating "fireworks." The reason the soap begins to mix the food coloring around is because of the chemical structure of the soap. The soap molecule has a polar portion that likes to mix with water, and a nonpolar portion that doesn't like to be around water. The soap molecules react with the fat molecules in the milk and start swirling around, which is visible from the movement of the food coloring. The fattier the milk, the better a reaction you will get. It is fun to have students test whole milk and skim milk and compare the results.

3. Testing the 5 Second Rule- This is my favorite lab to begin the year with, but it requires a little prep work. While you can order sterile agar plates from any science supply site, it is much cheaper to pour your own. (If you haven't poured your own plates before, here is a blog post to walk you through it). In this lab students get to design their own experiment that would test whether or not food is really safe to eat after being on the ground for 5 seconds. When you purchase this lesson from my TpT store you will get three versions. In the high school version students design their own experiment, write their own procedures, and  choose their own independent variable (food type, surface that they drop the food on, etc.) In the middle school version the procedures are given and it walks the students through the lab step by step. There is also a version with a CER chart if you are a CER user. Students will love seeing how much bacteria is on their food! You can even take it a step further and have students try and kill the bacteria with different cleansers (soap, bleach, 409, etc.) and see which is the most effective.

4. Characteristics of Life Lab- Students always love this lab! At the beginning of biology, we discuss what the word "biology" means and the characteristics of life. I give them a box of objects and they have to classify them as living, non-living, dormant, or dead. If you give them some things they don't recognize (like yeast) it will really make them think.

5. Abiotic Factors Lab- How do living things respond to their environment? If you teach at a school with computer access or 1:1 technology, check out this virtual lab from Glencoe. It focuses on the affect of abiotic factors on living organisms. It could also be a great make-up lab if you have students absent from any of the labs listed above.

6. Pollen Lab- "Why don't roses and tulips cross fertilize and produce rolips?" In this lab from Flinn, students observe pollen grains under the microscope and analyze conditions necessary for pollen growth. I haven't tried this one, but seems fascinating!


What other scientific method experiments do you love? Leave them in the comments below!
If you need to spruce up your classroom decor, check out these scientific method posters.
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Can you believe it's already time to go back to school? Whether you are teaching a new subject this year, or just need to spruce up your curriculum, teachers pay teachers has the resources you need! We would love to help you pay for those resources! A bunch of secondary science sellers have some great giveaways for you! There are two ways to win:
1. Individual giveaways- Each seller pictured above is giving away individual prizes on their blogs! Check out the bottom of this post to win $25 worth of resources to my TpT store! There are multiple ways to win, so be sure to check out the rafflecopter below.
2. Group giveaway- We put together one HUGE blog hop giveaway, just for science teachers teaching in grades 6-12: 4 $100 Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards! Each blog post has a secret code word and number. My clue word is 9. Solutions. The number tells you where the word falls in the secret sentence. Collect the words from each blog, write them down in number order, and copy the secret sentence into the joint rafflecopter giveaway. This rafflecopter form is the same on every blog, so you only need to enter once from any one of our blogs!
Giveaway starts Monday at 12 noon and ends at midnight on Friday. Best of luck!

As teachers, we are always on a budget. Decorating classrooms can get pricey. When I first started teaching I was spending a fortune online and at teaching supply stores to buy science posters so my walls weren't so drab. Since then, I've been creating my own science posters that the library will print for me poster size and laminate. You can see some of my posters in the picture gallery below). It has saved me a bunch of money! I have posters in my store, covering topics such as the rock cycle, cells, scientific variables, and more. Check them out here!  You can buy the whole bundle and save!

I've also complied a list of other posters I have found online for FREE download:
1. Human Genome Poster- This is great to bring out during my genetics unit. Students can look up which genes and diseases are held on each chromosome.
2. Top 10 Reasons you should take Physics
3. Water Education Posters- many posters available on topics such as groundwater, watersheds, and water quality.
4. Scientific Method- Scholastic has created these posters on the scientific method
5. Earth at Night- Poster from NASA
6. Earth/Mars Comparison poster
7. Earthquakes and Seismology- from IRIS
8. March for Science- 6 free posters to celebrate women in science
9. Physics Central- Fun physics posters that can be purchased or downloaded for free
10. Climate Science Posters- These definitely have a political tone, but if you are teaching about climate change are available for free
11. Renewable Energy Posters- in developing countries
12. Big Telescopes- and why we need them
13. Periodic table for biology- Great for honors/AP students
14. Make a difference with careers in biology poster set
15. Not All Chemists Wear White Coats poster set
16. Periodic Table for Biologists
17. Teaching Tolerance- not science related, but oh so important!
18. Forces of Nature- Poster series of women in science
19. NSTA Infographics- More teacher based than student based, but still colorful and free
20. STEM Role Model Posters- These are 8 beautiful posters of women in STEM!
21. Forces of Nature Posters- from Perimeter Institute.
22. Solar System and Beyond- Poster set from NASA
23. Recycling Posters- Poster set from We Are Teachers
24.I am a Scientist series

Enjoy!