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!!

Oh it feels  good to be home and to have slept in my bed last night.  I have heard that the week at NCCAT is awesome, but I really didn’t think it would be as great as it was!  I am already breaking the rules because I can’t pick just one highlight from this week, sorry!!

I would say the best part of the week was meeting all the wonderful Kenan teachers.  Everyone was so nice and I was able to learn so much from each person I talked to.  I feel like I have created so many new and wonderful friendships from this week.  I feel that it is important to surround myself with positive and strong teachers and this experience is definitely doing that for me!

I really liked all the breakout sessions we had.  I was able to pick the topics that interested me the most and I feel like I have a lot of useful tools and technology I can bring back to the classroom.  I specifically like that I learned about Augmented Reality.  This is such a cool tool to use in the classroom and I know my students will love lessons that incorporate this app.  I also think all the tools that Eric Rowles talked about in his seminar will be perfect in my classroom (like remind 101, wingclips, and djearworm).

Finally, I thought that the white water rafting trip was AMAZING!!!!  I was very fortunate to get a boat with great people and a fun guide.  I couldn’t have asked for a better day (even though my body was a little sore the next day) 😉

I have attached a photo from the first day that I took of the Students Discover team.  We beat the record for the marble race…and we were pretty stoked about it!!

I really hope to gain a lot of amazing connections to teachers and the staff here, which I feel like I already have and it is only the second day.  I think that this experience will help me become better at creating meaningful lesson plans and to be able to take my personal experiences and create lessons from them.  From today alone, I have been exposed to so many great technology tools that I can bring back to my classroom and use in my lessons.  I hope that I will take away more useful teaching tools throughout this experience.  Finally, I can’t wait to start working with my mentor.  I feel like this experience alone will be career changing.  The information that I will gain from this will completely impact my career.  I do not know a lot about prehistoric forensics, so I am excited to be able to bring this experience and what I have learned, back to my students!!

So it is the Friday before NCCAT and I am BEYOND excited for this experience to start.  Since I am part of the Students Discover we worked from home this week.  I learned a lot from my reading on how to classify shark teeth and I cannot wait to put it to work.  I am so honored to be working with such amazing and talented teachers this year through Kenan and can’t wait to bring what I have learned back to the classroom.   I am so excited to meet everyone next week, we will have so much fun!!!