NASA removed the old Spinoff game they used to have (link) and updated it with the following:
40 years of Spinoffs – a gallery of spinoffs used in every day life that were originally developed for space missions
If you click on the image – each one has a link to a detailed article about how that item was used in the space program and then adapted to civilian use
NASA Kids – Find the Spinoffs game, using the clues, can you find the spinoff?
OLD WEBSITE & Handout: NASA has a great interactive website for students to explore how technologies developed for space exploration are used to improve our daily lives. I made a handout to help guide the students through the website and learn more about items that they used or found interesting. Using their handout, they listed and compared how NASA used or developed the technology to how we use the technology.
I used this hands-on activity as a review/reinforcement with my 7th graders and it really helped them understand the different blood types, about blood donation, and basic Punnett Squares. Plus they had fun playing the games and making up their own games.
Materials:
One set of laminated flashcards (pdf) per person, or two sets shared in a group of 4 students
pencil and lined paper to make Punnett Squares
All of the instructions and different games to play are explained in the handout. Some examples are: Who can donate? Punnett Square Practice, Identification, Memory, and Matching.
Other ways to use the cards:
Flashcards – Students can print their own at home and use them to study
You can set up a station/rotation to play the games as they are, or as ‘make your own’ game stations. Or a combination of both. Place one game at each station and have the students rotate every 7-10 minutes (see below for logistics)
Rotation Directions – students will rotate from table to table and learn to play the game at each station
Need a group of 4 students at each station.
When it is time to rotate, only 2 go to the next station, and 2 stay.
The 2 that stay are the experts on that game.
The 2 experts teach the 2 novices how to play when they rotate to the table.
When it is time to rotate, the 2 experts who stayed go to the next group, and the novices are now the experts and teach the 2 new novices that came to the station.
Quiz-Quiz Trade –
give each student a RBC card and have them identify it, then trade
give each student a blood-type card and ask for the genotype (ie AA or AO)
Or mix both decks and play both games
Find your Partner –
give half or your class Blood Type Cards and the other half of the class RBC cards and have them find the matching set
Interactive Links for further practice
Blood Typing Game – can you make the right choice? (link)
Are you my blood type? can you find the donor? (link)
Emergency Room – figure out the blood type and correct transfusion (link)
Recently, I tried the “Quiz, Quiz, Trade” (QQT) method of review to help my students study for their Apollo Missions assessment. How does it work? See the video below:
Before starting the activity, I modeled how to ask, answer, and trade using student volunteers. We also discussed ‘quizzing etiquette’. What do you do if your partner is stuck? How can you give clues to help jog their memories? What are some things that you should or should NOT say if someone can’t answer the question, even with hints? After you go over the answer with your partner, are there any tips to help your partner remember the answer? I stressed the importance of helping each other learn. It is not just about getting the answers right or wrong and no one ‘wins’ if they answered the most questions correctly.
Each student was given one question to start the activity. Because I had more questions than students in my class, after a student makes 3 trades, I had the students hand in/trade their cards with me to introduce new questions into the mix as needed. Some students will answer more questions than others, and that is ok. The students quizzed/traded with each other for about 20 minutes. While they were quizzing each other, they kept track of which questions they answered correctly, and which ones they needed to work on using this handout: Quiz, Quiz, Trade Numbers (pdf)
Sample Question Card
For the second half of the review activity, I divided the class into two teams. I would randomly pick one question to ask each team. Before I asked the question, I announced the number of the question I was going to ask them. The students on each team then looked at their sheets to see who had that answered that numbered question correctly and chose one person to come up to answer the question. If no one had the numbered question answered correctly (or did not have a chance to answer it during QQT), they would volunteer a ‘tribute’ to try to answer the question. If the first team answers correctly after I read the question to the class, they earned a point. If answered incorrectly, the other team had a chance to steal and earn the point. We really enjoyed playing QQT and I plan on using it again in a variety of ways.
This is also a great way to practice vocabulary words. Using index cards, students can write the vocab word on one side and the definition on the other. You can also use it for identification skills – show a picture on one side, and the identification on the other. For example, one side can have a picture of a beaker, and the other side will have the word ‘beaker’ to practice identifying lab equipment. Other ideas include: plant identification, constellation identification, cloud identification, metric conversions or abbreviations, etc…
You can access them as a Shared Google Drive Folder (Click for link)
I always like to have puzzles handy for students to work on when they have finished their classwork, or if they completed a test and are waiting for other students to finish, or just for fun!
I have 72 science themed scramble puzzles (Scrabble-like) based on Physical and Earth Science vocabulary words. There is a Master List that shows all the words and which number puzzle it is. Each file is saved as the answer, too. Students can make 3, 4, 5, and 6 letter words and calculate their scores based on the letter values within each word they find. There is one 7 letter science word answer for each puzzle.
Middle School Science Blog 