Stretch your Thinking starting with Encyclopedia.com Side-by-side Comparison of Bioremediation Ideas

Here's a link: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Bioremediation.aspx

Start with an encyclopedia's description of bioremediation and let your imagination wander. What ideas pop into your mind? Play with them.

Have fun thinking up solutions to today's global problems.

Did you come up with information and ideas that should be protected before they are shared? Remember to protect your ideas.

Evaluate---> Create

Here's a post on teaching higher order thinking skills: http://www1.chapman.edu/univcoll/faculty/piper/2042/essential.htm

Use it and use the HOT Skills wheel as you read it. Use your background knowledge and your value system to evaluate what it says. You can do the entire post, or, just a paragraph. But, try to probe deeply into the ideas presented. Relate them to teaching/learning science.

Next, create something out of that reading and evaluation. Perhaps a video or a paper expressing key ideas and how you can use them to solve the, "No Child Left Behind," riddle. (Because as the NCLB stands, too many children are being left behind.) Or perhaps, you can create a painting or a ballet to convey a suggestion for public policy related to science education. Or, maybe, you have come up with a great lesson plan idea and you want to prepare a dynamic class for next week's science lesson.

Here are some ideas from the HOT Skills link above written earlier in this blog. You can use these ideas together with what you already know to help you evaluate the Chapman post and then create or synthesize your new ideas or ways of presenting based on what you read. What will you create?

Analysis: Do you see patterns? How are parts organized? Do you recognize any hidden meanings? Can you identify components?

Application: You can apply the data when you use information, methods, concepts,and theories in new situations. Solving problems by using required skills or knowledge is also, "application." For example, did you apply math skills that you already have to analyze the data.

Synthesis: Can you generalize from given facts, relate knowledge from several areas, predict, draw conclusions and use old ideas to create new ones? assess value of theories, make choices based on reasoned arguments, verify value of evidence, recognize subjectivity, compare and discriminate between/among ideas.

Remember to step through the thinking processes and be sure to use, "evaluation," and "creation." Have fun thinking deeply and being creative, too.

Solar power leads to sustainability... What do you think?

Watch this video and think about it. Compare and contrast your life to what you see in this video. Evaluate it based on what you know of science of solar power and on your own value system. Try writing about it. Do you know of other ways to use science to improve sustainability of the Earth and concurrently end poverty? Does charity overlap with science? Reflection using your science skills helps make informed decisions...


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I have added another video that I found later: