Tonight at 7pm EST we’re having an online chat in the TappedIn online learning community - http://tappedin.org. We’ll be working our way through the December 2008 issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears online magazine. If you can’t join us, you can still take “our tour” below. We meet the first Thursday of each month - hope you can join us in January when we discuss the Polar Mammals issue.

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TappedIn Tour: Earth’s Changing Surface

Beyond Penguins Room

December 11, 2008 – 7pm EST

Earth’s surface is always changing, and the polar regions are no exception. Glaciers slowly scour the landscape, while the fierce katabatic winds of Antarctica create unusual rock sculptures. Just off the coast of Antarctica, Mt. Erebus erupts almost daily. In this issue, we highlight lessons in which students model the forces that shape and change Earth.

Let’s go to the December issue - http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/issue/index.php?date=December2008. You’ll see that we have five departments and then columns within each department. By the way – all issues are laid out the same way.

Let’s go to the department – Professional Learning – and click on the Science Content Knowledge link – you’ll get to the article “The Forces that Change the Face of Earth” (http://tinyurl.com/5dzwoj).

Even though the hot magma and lava of volcanoes and the ice of the polar regions seem incompatible, there’s quite a bit volcanic activity in the Arctic and Antarctica. Scroll down to the Volcanoes section of the article – look at the last two images in this section. What do you see - anything amazing?

Go back to the issue page (http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/issue/index.php?date=December2008) and look at the other columns we have under Professional Learning. We’ll come back to the Literacy Content Knowledge column in a few minutes.

Now let’s click on the column “Lessons and Activities” in the department Science and Literacy (http://tinyurl.com/6ph7ow). Spend a few minutes looking at the breadth of activities – then report back on one that you find interesting.

We also have a bookshelf in the Science and Literacy department - http://tinyurl.com/6j5hyv - with activity books and teacher’s guides in case you need more ideas. Are you familiar with any of these titles?

We also write our own informational texts for K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 students that go along with the theme of each issue of the magazine. They come in text, illustrated, and electronic versions. When you click on the Feature Story link - http://tinyurl.com/5lch9f - and scroll through the document, you’ll see the text of the feature story, illustrated and printable versions, and then electronic versions of the story.

Our Feature Story, “The Heart of Erebus,” teaches students about Antarctica’s active volcano while the associated templates provide support as they identify facts, ask questions, and make connections with nonfiction text. The entire article on the literacy strategies is under the Professional Learning – Literacy Content Knowledge - http://tinyurl.com/5b4mv6.

All the informational texts can be found by clicking on the Stories for Students link in the header - http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/information.php?topic=stories. Click on the link and look a few of the stories. Which ones do you think your students would like?

Go back to the December issue page - http://beyondpenguins.nsdl.org/issue/index.php?date=December2008 - and spend a few minutes looking at the other columns that we didn’t go to.

You can see that there are quite a few items we didn’t cover! Hope you enjoy exploring the rest of the issue.