iDigFossils

Hi from California!  My students did the lesson this week and studied the ancestral whale bones, put them in order and started learning about the evolution of the whale.  We are in the middle of research and building our presentations.  We should be finished next week before they are out of school.  Not sure if I can actually do the extension piece, time in our curriculum is tight and I also have to find Astragalus stl. files for modern Hippo, Water Buffalo, Rhino, or Giraffe…?  I was going to have kids do the post survey and also complete my reflection this week.  Realizing I needed to simplify a lot in some areas of the lesson plan and in other areas the kids really got it.  Either way telling them all we had an ancient bone 3D printed from the University of Michigan’s library was super cool for them.  They completely connected how powerful it would be and smart to have a copy without the real thing so that we did not have fossils broken, lost, and so that multiple people could all be using the materials at once.  Kids love fossils and they were really inspired, this was a really fun project to do with them, even with the printer hiccups and running out of PLA, and then spools not fitting the machine.  Glad our IT guy was a good sport and helped me hack a way to get the machine to keep printing!

We completed the post survey yesterday. Implementation of my lesson on the bathymetry of Monterey Canyon did not happen due to multiple technical difficulties with the STL I had for the canyon- it was too big; with tinkering and help from our IT guy the file was sliced and worked. Next mishap was with the printer and software; our IT guy updated CURA but did not complete the process, thus I could not print. He was then transferred to another location, leaving me in the lurch for a few weeks. He did come back, and got the system up and running, but it was too late to implement.

Long story short, in lieu of this lesson, I modified Bruce McFadden’s Chewing on Change and implemented with my 6th graders. I will send this reflection tomorrow.

erin

I have finished my reflection and am emailing it to Claudia, Pasha and Michael this evening. All of my students have now taken the post survey. I have just a few minor edits still to make on my unit. I am very glad to have participated in this project, and learned so much!

I finished up my unit this week, and have one more group of students to complete the post-survey tomorrow. I will tweak my initial plans this weekend and post them, along with my reflection. Last week was amazing with Michael Ziegler co-teaching all four of my classes with me! The kids were disappointed this week to learn that Mr. Ziegler had gone back to Florida!

I started my lesson on Monday the 26th. We took the pretest on Monday as well. I had planned on doing the printing Friday, but things are moving slower that I had expected. We will print either Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I have also contacted a couple of paleontologist friends about a fossil hunt but I don’t have anything confirmed.

Pavlo,

I am pushing my lesson back as I am trying to locate 3D files.  I am going to try and complete the lesson December 13th & 14th

Is anybody working with whales? If so, email me! cgrant@flmnh.ufl.edu

Good Morning,
Below is my update: 
My reflection document, photos, and an excel document of some pre and post assessments were sent to Pasha this morning.  Students have completed both the pre and post surveys and my final version of my lesson plan was uploaded onto Myfossil earlier this week.  I also have student assent forms ready for pickup or delivery.  Please let me know if anything else that is needed.

Thanks,
Tredina

Hello, I just wanted to encourage all of you who might be interested in signing up for this newsletter:

https://inside3dprinting.com/

It is a great way to know how 3D scanning and 3D printing is being used, specially in science. Great resource for students as well. They don’t spam you and I believe you can decide how often you want an email from them.