I feel like I can’t say this enough, my experience was amazing!  My biggest aha moment was when I finally understood what I was doing on my externship and I was able to see how I was going to incorporate it into my curriculum.  I was very nervous about what I was going to be doing for the summer (now I know that the mentors didn’t know either!)  But after I was able to see that it was something that I could easily implement into my classroom, I felt so much better and I was able to see clearly and plan out 4 lessons.  The aha came when Dr. Gates explained what he wanted from us and it all made sense.  I remember saying “oooooohhhh I get it” out loud! I am so excited to implement my lessons in my classroom and be able to get real data that I can share with my mentor.

I have been very fortunate that I have only had successes when it came to writing my curriculum.  Now I know if anyone is reading this right now they are probably rolling their eyes, but it wasn’t my “awesomeness” that has helped in my successfulness, just that I was dealt a very nice hand.  Let me explain.  Within my Paleo group, there are 3 of us.  I was lucky that Kimberly and I are both teaching 8th grade science this year, which meant that we could do our lessons together.  Second, my project actually fell into exactly what I am expected to teach in 8th grade science, FOSSILS!!  By having two brains and already having the standards in place, Kimberly and I were free to plan our project right into our curriculum.  We were also very fortunate to have a mentor that gave us a few hours a day to write our curriculum.  This allowed us to work together the whole time, and have our mentor with us so that we could ask questions along the way.  Because of all these opportunities, we were able to finish all of our lesson plans before our last day and create 4 pretty awesome (in my opinion), cross curricular lessons!

Now we just have to wait to get our edits back….. 😉

I was very fortunate to already know the standards I was going to cover with my externship before I even started.  Even though I didn’t know exactly what I would be doing, I knew that I would be looking at fossils and that fit perfectly with my 8th grade science curriculum.  I know I was very fortunate to have my experience fit in so seamlessly with my curriculum and so our amazing paleo  group has already finished a good chunk of our lesson plans.  We have also added in readings, history of our dig site, and we are graphing our data so that our lessons are cross curricular!

The main lesson that our mentor wanted from our group was for the students to measure and record the size of the teeth they found from the sample I brought back from the Aurora Phosphate Mine.  From this lesson alone I will be able to connect it to the 8th grade standard 8.L.4.1 (biological classification and evolution).   I have also learned a lot about evolution and geology which I will also be able to implement in my classroom next year.

I’m so excited!!

Yesterday, Bucky (Dr. Gates), Juliana, Kimberly and I drove almost 3 hours out to Aurora, NC to check out the fossil mine.  In 2008 the Aurora Mine created 6.6 million tons of phosphate ore from which they produced 1.3 million tons of phosphoric acid!!  This mine has the rights to mine 22,000 acres and is still growing today.  For a comparison, the city of Raleigh is 91,392 acres.

Anyways, enough about facts, back to the experience.  We left Prairie Ridge Ecostation at 8 am with our wonderful driver, Tara.  We drove all the way to Washington, NC with only a few wrong turns, before we stopped at Bucky’s favorite place for hotdogs, Bill’s Hotdogs.  Even though it was only a little after 10 am, we scarfed down 3 hotdogs (Bucky had 4) and got back on the road to Aurora.  Once we got there we were able to see part of the Phosphate mine, owned by PCS Phosphate, grabbed a few pictures (below), and talked to a very nice man who worked security there.  We travelled to the Aurora Fossil Museum where we were able to dig through the “dirt” (the mine dumps what they don’t use here and it is full of amazing fossils and teeth!), found some great fossils (below) in the very hot sun, and check out the museum.

This was an amazing experience that I was so fortunate to be apart of!

The week at NCCAT really opened my eyes on how teachers can incorporate technology into the classroom.  I was very surprised to see how many tools were out there to use in the classroom.   The best part of all the tools is that they are very user friendly and easy to implement in the classroom (like remind me 101, wingclips, and  kahoot).

I have been hesitant in the past to take too much on while teaching since I am a fairly new teacher and can get overwhelmed easily.  The best part about what I learned at NCCAT is that it is very simple to implement in the classroom and it makes learning so much more interactive, fun, and I think the students can learn more!  I feel a lot more confident going into next school year knowing that it will easier to implement a lot of different technology pieces into the classroom.

Finally, my only concern outside of myself, are my students.  I know that a few of them do not have smartphone or access to the internet. I do feel like we can overcome this issue by either sharing across students or opening up my classroom in the morning for students to be able to use the computers.

The three of us (Kimberly, Juliana, and I) were able to sift through the “garbage” brought back from the Aurora mines and were able to pick out fossils and shark teeth. I can’t believe how difficult it was. Dr. Gates didn’t give us any prior knowledge on how to do this, because he knew this is how our students would come into this situation. We looked through a small sample at a time and would pick out what we thought were fossils and shark teeth. We would then dump the “trash” into another container where Dr. Gates would look through it to pick out what we didn’t find. It was amazing what we didn’t know where fossils and on the other hand, what we thought were fossils and weren’t! I can’t wait to learn more about how to do this properly so that I can teach this with confidence to my students. I know I will!!!

Our group was able to see Dr. Gates present to the museum on what our fellowship entailed.  Needless to say,  by the end of his presentation and lab walkthrough, the other groups were very excited about our project!!!

Dr. Gates Presenting 

Look at the serrations on the edge of the teeth!!  

Looking for shark teeth

Really cool shark tooth that Dr. Gates showed during his presentation

This shark tooth is the size of my hand!!