Blog

Looking beyond paper and pencil

Teacher Ambassador Stephanie Harmon

“I love the look of amazement and confidence when someone makes connections and understands what is happening,” says Stephanie Harmon, who’s beginning her 24th year in a high school classroom. She was named Kentucky Science Teacher Association’s Outstanding High School Science Teacher in 2014, and currently teaches physics and advanced physical science and Earth science at Rockcastle County High School in Mount Vernon, and introductory astronomy at Eastern Kentucky University.

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Students write better arguments with automated real-time feedback

High-Adventure Science HASBot analysis

Julia LaCava was a summer intern at the Concord Consortium. A junior at Ithaca College, she majors in communications. The Automated Scoring for Argumentation project, which we affectionately called “HASBot” is wrapping up. This four-year partnership between the High-Adventure Science (HAS) team at the Concord Consortium and Educational Testing Service (ETS) was funded by the […]

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Creative teaching from plate tectonics to plant pollinators

Teacher Ambassador Christine Fernandes

Christine Fernandes began as a horticulture major at Pennsylvania State University, but transferred to agricultural education so she could become a teacher. She absolutely loves her career choice. She learned about the Concord Consortium through a listserv from her alma mater. We’re collaborating with Penn State on our GEODE project to develop new geodynamic plate tectonic modeling software for middle school students. The software is designed to allow students to observe and describe the formation of surface geologic features in terms of plate interactions. Christine explains, “It really clicked for the students, seeing what was happening below the ground in relation to the size and magnitude of the earthquakes along the western coast of South America.”

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Aftershocks! Explore the recent southern California earthquakes with Seismic Explorer

Julia LaCava is a summer intern at the Concord Consortium. A junior at Ithaca College, she majors in communications. A massive 7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred July 5 in southern California near Ridgecrest, the strongest to hit the area in 20 years. The quake followed the Independence Day 6.4 magnitude earthquake the previous day north of […]

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Exploring Hawai’i (and the rest of Earth) with Seismic Explorer

Hawai'i in Seismic Explorer

Kilauea, Hawai’i’s youngest and most active volcano, has been continuously erupting since 1983. But it made news again recently with large earthquakes and lava fountains erupting in residential areas. Have you ever wondered what’s going on with Kilauea? Can scientists predict when and where a volcano will next erupt? You can use Seismic Explorer to […]

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