As our heart grows: natural disasters...

 If we only knew….

 If we only knew about the warning signs and the aftermath we could better prepare.

If we only knew then lives would not traumatically end, a life that a spare.

If we only on knew we could prepare prevent and beforehand repair.

Natural disaster should be a topic often discussed. There could be commercials and advertisement to display the cause and effect of natures work. Often times we hear about the natural disaster but we do truly know the devastation its has caused. The citizens need to know, it should be put out there not just on a fact sheet. If the community was educated about natural disasters they can prepare by evaluation or any other form of security measures.  So that my student are aware I would: Create a list of 15 to 20 nations recently affected by natural hazards, enough to assign one nation to every two students in your class. Your collection should show a broad range of events and consequences. Have copies of articles and Web addresses ready to distribute to students on the day of the lesson. Ask students to list natural hazards around the world. Record their contributions on the board. A few may have stories to share of their personal experiences with these events. Ask students to examine the list carefully and to write a personal definition of the term "natural hazard." Provide another opportunity to add to or edit the original list. Make sure students have included hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes, storms, droughts, earthquakes, forest fires, and insect infestations. And make sure that human-caused disasters are taken off the list. During the discussion, rank the disasters by typical degree of severity, suddenness, and occurrence of associated hazards.  I would like for my class to volunteer at the American Red Cross. The Red Cross involves annually matching knowledge, skills, interests and experience of individual's with opportunities to serve their community. Knowledge is power, we must educate about natural disasters.

Curious? Ask A Scientist, deepening my knowledge:Viruses- HIV/AIDS

I recently visited a web site where you could ask a scientist a question call Ask a Scientist at http://www.askascientist.org.  So I asked , “Has there ever been a case of some one’s body being immune to a viral disease? Is this possible why or why not? How could this help in the search for the HIV/AIDS cure?” I asked a scientist and there no results found. So I then sent a request for the answers to the previous questions. Still there was no response, not what I expected. This type of web site would be very beneficial to my students if the intent was successful.  Being able to interact and gain insight from real scientist would be  a motivator in the science fields. Through my own research I have discovered a lot about HIV immunity. I know that our immune system detects a wide variety of agents and determines if they are foreign or not. Foreign agent are often killed and destroyed. To be protected, people must inherit the genes from both parents; those who inherit a mutated gene from just one parent will end up with greater resistance against HIV than other people, but they won't be immune. Studies have been done all over the world. Cases have been presented with studies of groups or people who are constantly exposed to HIV and show symptoms or no signs of HIV.

According to Teacher’s Domain (2003) a genetic mutation that prevents the HIV virus from entering the cell has been found. HIV enters white blood cells through the CD-4 and CCR-5 receptors on the cell's surface; some individuals have no CCR-5 gene, which means that HIV cannot enter their cells (Teacher Domain, 2003). CD-4 cells are deep inside the body and not on the surface (i.e. skin) such as other CD markers, in which HIV/AIDS virus cannot enter as discussed by Tillery, Enger and Ross (2008). This is the evidence behind why HIV/AIDS cannot be transmitted through the skin or by touching. There are different types of cells to perform different duties.

I was then curious about plant cells and viruses. I wondered about plants getting viruses. I was informed by my professor (Dr. Lyman) that plants are cellular so they can be invaded by viruses just like we can. He also stated that some of the earliest studies of viruses were done on the Tobacco Mosaic Virus - a virion that damages tobacco crops and costs tobacco growers lots of money.

References

Teachers' Domain.(2003). HIV Immunity. Retrieved from:http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/tdc02.sci.life.gen.hivimmunity/
Tillery, B., Enger, E., & Ross, F. (2008). Integrated science (4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Evaluation of 2.0 tools....

Evaluation of 2.0 tools.

Prezi has really shown itself to me. I have always loved Power Point, but Prezi has stolen my heart. I feel that Prezi is like a new and improve Power Point.  The animations are eye catching and will keep any crowd attention.  Power point is often literature in a presentation and can get very boring.  A Prezi Presentation puts on a show for the audience. I think that Prezi would be beneficial for getting students involve and keeping them engaged while promoting 21^st century technology. Prezi is very versatile in its ability to present information. This would be a great tool to use for any project. The only down fall would be its stability. I would hate for my student to put together a presentation and all of their hard work is lost or erased! I know how it feels to have documents lost or erased and it is very discouraging.

Slideshare would be beneficial to students and they would be able to share their presentations, documents, and videos.

 Power point I believe is most user friendly, which is what students need. Through Power Point they can still incorporate graphics, videos, music, pictures and more in the presentation.

Viddix was also very interesting. This tool uses video presentation and will for sure promote 21^st century skills. Slides, images, text, links, polls, blogs, and other links can be posted. Web browsers can be used to invite viewer and the presenter can even poll the audience. It should be more user friendly.I think that this tool would be most beneficial to a business or college professor but not middle school students.