Format for these Materials

Winter science is the study of the physical aspects of winter -- cold, wind, snow and ice -- and the adaptations of plants and animals to winter conditions.  Although cold weather dominates the school year in most of the United States and Canada, middle and high school teachers lacked curriculum materials designed to take advantage of winter resources outside the classroom for the instruction of science concepts and skills.

The Winter Science Curriculum Project (WSCP) activities focus on 39 topics taught in the standard biology, earth science, chemistry, and physics curriculum at the middle and high school level.  In general, each of the 49 activities includes student materials ready for duplication, a teacher guide, and teacher background material if necessary. The materials were tested by classroom teachers and reviewed by experts for scientific accuracy. These winter science activities are not specialized materials; they will be useful in science courses offered by at least 60% of the secondary schools in the USA and Canada.

The WSCP activities offer genuine discovery or problem-solving opportunities in a ready-to-use format that will fit into teachers' existing lesson plans. Many of the WSCP activities are based on standard middle and high school laboratory procedures; the inquiry nature of the activity arises naturally out of the winter setting of the activities. Some of the activities are descriptive in nature; they serve to acquaint the student with basic science concepts and skills.  Other activities go beyond description into investigating problems of real significance to scientists; these activities include a unique prediction step which can be used as the basis of class discussion before the experiment. With older or more able students, teachers may also choose to have students design their own experimental procedure to solve the problem rather than use the instructions provided.

The activities are in "frame format". The top frame is for the students and the bottom one for teachers. Click on the top frame and then print frame under "file" to create a master for duplication. You may have to do some cut and paste for data sheets which come at the end of the frame. If you click on a topic (e.g. a question number) in the top frame, suggestions to the teacher (or answers to the question) are given in the bottom frame which is advanced to that point. On the other hand, you can just scroll through the teacher frame. Large keys and examples are separate rather than being with the activity so that it is easier to download the activity. Click on the word KEY after the activity on the main page to get the key. They are all in jpg format. All of this is free for use by teachers, but I would appreciate knowing if any of this is being used so contact me at: stamm@oswego.edu and let me know what you think. Thank you and good luck.