Welcome to Secondary Science Implementation Support. This site from the Ministry of Education in SK has a huge collection of excellent supports for High School Science.

There are currently over 500 supports available.

Select "Support Materials" from the menu on the left.

This site houses materials developed to support teachers' implementation of secondary science courses. The Support Materials section contains materials that have been developed and refined by each of the course-specific Secondary Implementation Support teams. Teachers are free to use these materials as they wish.
Any teacher may post questions in the Discussion Board and/or share their materials. Note that copyright must be respected in all cases.

Support materials for Science 10, Health Science 20, Environmental Science 20, Physical Science 20, Chemistry 30, Physics 30, Biology 30, Earth Science 30, Computer Science 20 and Computer Science 30 have been posted.

You must be logged into Blackboard to see the supports.

This resource can help you access Blackboard as a SK Teacher if you are having difficulty: https://s3.amazonaws.com/sws.oercommons.org/media/editor/30/Accessing_Blackboard.pdf (Copy and paste this url into a browser).

Please note: You will need to click "Open this in a new window" to view the resource when the message appears.

Students apply everything they have learned about light properties and laser technologies to designing, constructing and presenting laser-based security systems that protect the school's mummified troll. In the associated activity, students "test their mettle" by constructing their security system using a PVC pipe frame, lasers and mirrors. In the lesson, students "go public" by creating informational presentations that explain their systems, and serve as embedded assessment, testing each student's understanding of light properties.

This unit describes a general approach to guiding students to complete service-based engineering design projects, with specific examples provided in detail as associated activities. With your class, brainstorm ideas for engineering designs that benefit your community or a specific person in your community. Then, guided by the steps of the engineering design process, have students research to understand background science and math, meet their client to understand the problem, and create, test and improve prototype devices. Note that service-based projects often take more time to prepare, especially if you arrange for a real client. However, the authors notice that students of both genders and all ethnicities tend to respond with more enthusiasm and interest to altruistic projects.

Students learn about contamination and pollution, specifically in reference to soil in and around rivers. To start, groups use light sensors to take light reflection measurements of different colors of sand (dyed with various amounts of a liquid food dye), generating a set of "soil" calibration data. Then, they use a stream table with a simulated a river that has a scattering of "contaminated wells" represented by locations of unknown amounts of dye. They make visual observations and use light sensors again to take reflection measurements and refer to their earlier calibration data to determine the level of "contamination" (color dye) in each well. Acting as engineers, they determine if their measured data is comparable to visual observations. The small-scale simulated flowing river shows how contamination can spread.

You will find everything you need here to use STEM challenges to introduce and teach your students 21st Century Skills.

Before each activity look at the "What Skills Do I Need?" attachment and discuss what needs to be done. Then show them the specific challenge - plan and do it! After have the kids complete the related reflection. All files below.

Before every challenge - What Skills Do I Need?
Challenge 1 & Self-Management Reflection
Challenge 2 & Effective Participation Reflection (also includes self-management)
Challenge 3 & Creativity Reflection (includes both skills above as well)
Challenge 4 & Enquiry Reflection (includes other 3 skills above as well)
Challenge 5 & Reflection Reflection (includes other 4 skills above)
Challenge 6 & Team Work Reflection (includes all other skills)
21st Century Skills reflection includes all skills
All documents are word files (except one) so you can edit them - if you have a problem with fonts etc, let me know and I can send you the pdf versions. Melissa.Lander@sunwestsd.ca

This article discusses how the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument found on the Terra satellite is used to understand how particles in the atmosphere interact with sunlight and how particle pollution affects Earth's climate. Directions for building a demonstration model of MISR out of cardboard tubes is included, along with short activities to show how it's multiple viewing angles allow MISR to differentiate the kinds of particles in the air because they scatter light differently, depending on their size, shape, and composition.

Students learn about the types of waves and how they change direction, as well as basic wave properties such as wavelength, frequency, amplitude and speed. During the presentation of lecture information on wave characteristics and properties, students take notes using a handout. Then they label wave parts on a worksheet diagram and draw their own waves with specified properties (crest, trough and wavelength). They also make observations about the waves they drew to determine which has the highest and the lowest frequency. With this knowledge, students better understand waves and are a step closer to understanding how humans see color.

A Year of Wellness for Middle Years was created by Sun West School Division teachers involved in the Mental Wellness PLC to support integrating all areas of wellness into the daily lives of our students and enhance their wellbeing. This resource includes monthly activities connected to the Middle Years leaning outcomes for each domain of wellness: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, and Social. Students can work on this project independently, with their family, or as a class!

A recent blog by Grant Wiggins affirmed what I have long believed about creativity: it is a 21st-century skill we can teach and assess. Creativity fosters deeper learning, builds confidence and creates a student ready for college and career.

However, many teachers don't know how to implement the teaching and assessment of creativity in their classrooms. While we may have the tools to teach and assess content, creativity is another matter, especially if we want to be intentional about teaching it as a 21st-century skill. In a PBL project, some teachers focus on just one skill, while others focus on many. Here are some strategies educators can use tomorrow to get started teaching and assessing creativity -- just one more highly necessary skill in that 21st-century toolkit.