It has been a few days since my last post but I have been really busy with school, finishing out the end of the term!  My parents are currently on the flight to Sydney and will be traveling for the next few hours!  I'm extremely excited to see them on Friday when they arrive in Bairnsdale.

Yesterday was a busy day with two dissections in the last two classes of the day.  They year-7s were busy during their class dissecting squid and the "Animal Inside" group were dissecting mice!  I would much have preferred the mice the entire day; they didn't smell as bad as the squid and they certainly weren't as messy.  I had ink all over myself at the end of the lesson with the youngins.  Calamari certainly didn't sound great for dinner; good thing we had steak instead!

The "Animal Inside" crew really enjoyed the mice, well, at least most of them did.  A few of the students had to leave the room because they couldn't handle the dissection.  They spend the lesson on the computers doing some research on a task I gave them as an alternative to the dissection.  The rest of the students, working on the mice, did a fantastic job!  I was really impressed with their keenness to preform the task.  I dissected a rat, along with the students, to help them with the procedure.  Before making any cuts in the mice, I gave the students a demo of how to preform each of the necessary cuts.  I probably should have worn gloves looking back; my hands still smell of feral animal.

Today, the students in "Bones" finished up their projects on the computer.  Unfortunately, a few of them were having computer issues and weren't able to finish on time.  At least they have the next two weeks until they see me next in class, so they have plenty of time to complete the assignment.  Students were told that they could make any additions to their site over break if they wanted to make them look better.  If you would like to see some of their progress, you can go to www.bscbones.weebly.com

One of the students put together the home page today after he finished his project.  He put together all of the hyperlinks to the rest of the students' sites; I was quite impressed!  

I arrived home today and started the laundry so I have fresh clothes when I leave for Melbourne on Sunday with my parents.  I also submitted my project to Miami; I'm so relieved that it's done! 

Tomorrow I only have one class and then will be swamped with grading and then parent-teacher conferences after school until 8 or so.  I'm excited to meet students' parents but am a little nervous since they are my first ones.  I'm sure they'll go well and there will be a lot to take from the experience!

It’s the final week of the term!  It really is so hard to believe that my parents will be here at the end of the week to travel around with me for a couple weeks!  I only have 3 weeks of teaching left until I come home to graduate! 

This weekend went by extremely fast!  The highlight of the weekend was certainly the trip with Ernie to Buchan to explore the caves of the karst topography.  We took a tour with a few people through the Royal Cave, one of two that is open to the public to take tours through.

The caves were absolutely stunning!  We traveled in and out of open rooms full of calcite crystal stalactites, stalagmites, and columns.  The tour took us through about 500 meters of the cave, in and out of cave sections lit up by artificial light.  At one point, the guide turned off all of the lights so we could experience “complete darkness.”  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had never experienced that kind of darkness in my entire life.  After 10 minutes in the complete dark, I still couldn’t even see my hand in front of me at only 5 centimeters away.  The guide claimed that even after a whole day in the dark of the cave, your eyes, adjusted to the dark, would still not be able to see a single thing.  I’m glad the caves didn’t experience a power outage!

The rest of the weekend was devoted to finishing up my project for Miami and some bike riding.  I’m really focused on finishing up this project by Wednesday to allow myself the rest of the week to make any needed corrections before it is due of Friday. 

Tomorrow, I have two classes devoted to dissection.  Unfortunately, the year 7s weren’t able to do the squid dissection of Friday, as the squid never arrived at school.  The students used the time to finish up some work that was outstanding.  The “Animal Inside” students will be dissecting a mouse tomorrow.  I’m very excited for this since the students have been really keen on a dissection all term.  It is only fitting that the dissection is occurring at the end of the term!  Can’t wait!

The trip to the zoo has finally arrived!  I thought this week would take forever but no, Friday came around just as fast as the rest of them.  I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow for quite some time now, actually, since I started at BSC when I found out I would be taking the students to the zoo!  Before you know it the term will be over and my parents will be here for a few weeks! 

I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning, so I will keep this post short.  Linda is picking me up at 5:50 since we need to be at the station at 6 to meet the students for the 6:20 train to Melbourne; I hope all of the students show up!

Today, I only had one period on and it was “Animal Inside,” the class I am taking to the zoo tomorrow.  I spent the day going over the seemingly lengthy zoo assignment.  I really isn’t long but it is meant to keep the students occupied and on task while they are at the zoo.  The students seemed to take the assignment very well and were very interested in the information that I was asking them to find.  The entire class was participating today and was really excited to get to Melbourne and get away from school for a day; they’re an extremely lucky group of students if you ask me!

I will be without my computer for a few days, most likely until Monday so I will be off the blog and away from e-mail but I’m sure I’ll get a chance to get on at some point using someone else's computer. 

Also before I go for the night, I would like to wish my mom a happy birthday since I won't be able to do so on the tenth!  I know she wouldn’t want me to post her age, but too bad!  Happy 50th birthday Mom, I hope you have a great day on Saturday with dad and Kevin!

And back to the grind after a nice weekend!  I was delighted to see the Australian sun again this morning when I woke up!  It’s nice to wake up to the sunlight coming through the windows rather than the rain clinking on the roof. 

Last night, I decided at the last minute to do my laundry banking on the forecast of good weather to come!  I chose the perfect time to do it since it is supposed to rain later this week.  By the time the laundry was done, it was dark out, and I was ready for bed.  I wasn’t able to take it down from the line until this afternoon; I’m glad the weather held up during the day.  What am I saying?  The weather should always hold up in Australia!  I’ve noticed just the opposite; in fact, much a lot of Victoria and New South Whales has received wet weather over the past few weeks.  There are a lot of people in these areas who have had to evacuate due to flooding.  Apparently, Sydney had to open the dam to let the water through, a first since in the 21st century (according the news on television, the last time was in the 90s)!

I certainly felt the bike ride this morning when I woke up.  My legs were sore and the ride to school was somewhat of a struggle.  I’m hoping to get over this by biking a 30 km ride once a week.  Next time I will take my camera; hopefully I will see some more wildlife.  I think I’ve become addicted to the bike…certainly not a bad thing.

The first few periods were used to plan the week.  I spent much of it working on the assignment that I am distributing to the students while they are at the zoo.  The first task asks that they each bring a camera with them (a phone will suffice) on the rip.  I am asking that each of them take at least 20 pictures of various animals.  I will have the students use the pictures that they take next week and will ask that they construct a dichotomous key using a concept map software on the school computers.  They will be asked to organize the organisms based on their prior knowledge and on the knowledge that they learned while at the zoo.  I’m really excited to see the products of this task because each of the students will have a different representation. 

The next task will ask the students to find examples of homologous structures in a few of the animals at the zoo.  This won’t be a hard task but it will allow them to think in an evolutionary perspective when they are observing the various animals; kind of like Chuck!  This is certainly a skill zoologists use in their field studies, and one that I use all the time when I’m outside and see something new!  I especially like to use this evolutionary perspective when fishing.  The other day when I caught the Australian Salmon, I could right off the bat tell that it wasn’t a true salmon based on a few of the characteristics that I knew of true salmonids that you would find in the Northern Hemisphere.  Like many animals in Australia, Arripis trutta was named the by early European settlers because of a few similar characteristics it had with fish belonging to the Salmonidae family.  Truly, the Australian Salmon is a marine perch. 

The next task that I will ask of the students is that they observe the zoo characteristics very closely.  I want them to see how the animals are enclosed and the considerations that the zoo makes to ensure the safety of the animals and the people who visit the zoo.  I am more concerned with the safety of the animals than the people.  I am curious to find if the students see the zoo as a benefit to the community.  In my opinion, the true value of a zoo depends on a few things.  For one: the location.  A zoo in a developed country like Australia will certainly be better sustained, and will have facilities to humanely sustain the animals, than one is say Romania.  I have been to a Romanian zoo and will never go back again.  And two: the space that the animals are given.  I would expect that a zoo would allow each animal enough room to do what it needs to do to live comfortably.  On the opposite end of the spectrum from zoos, the safari reserves in Africa allow the animals to roam their native ecosystem and allow them to fill their natural niches without too much disturbance.  I do see the benefits of a zoo but it just isn’t like the real thing (see the pictures from South Africa and Namibia)…I’m curious to find out what the students think.

The final task will ask the students to reflect on their trip.  I’m curious to see what the students find to be interesting and exciting.  I’m hoping that the students will get back from the zoo with hundreds of questions about what they saw and what they learned!  This will indicate to me that the trip was a success!  I can’t wait until Friday!

The rest of the planning period time was used to plan some of the other classes.  I had “Bones” in the afternoon.  The students were still struggling with the maths associated with the levers but I’m getting the impression that more and more are starting to understand.  The next class period will be devoted to tying the maths with skeletal system with a model.  Eventually, I will ask the students to build a model lever based on one that can be found on the human body.  Should be interesting!

Tomorrow is another busy day at school!  I have 3 periods on and will be teaching all of my classes besides “Bones.”  The year-11s will be working on finishing up the practical that they left last week.  I will also ask them to discuss why cells are small.  This, of course, will lead into a discussion about surface area to volume ratios and the importance of having a large ratio as opposed to a small one.  Cells with a small ratio will not be able to get substances quickly from their environment needed for reactions inside the cell.  Also, they won’t be able to get rid of wastes quickly (as volume increase, surface area doesn’t increase to the same proportion therefore larger cells have smaller SA:V).  I’m hoping the students come to the conclusions on their own with a few prompting questions and models.

The “Animal Inside” class will be working on differentiating a hindgut from a foregut and the importance of each.  They will also be able to discuss which types of animals have each.  It is a great comparative digestion lesson.  I want the students to leave class knowing that “hindgut fermenters” have symbiotic bacteria in the caecum and proximal colon, which ferments some of the herbaceous material into absorbable fatty acids that the animal uses as energy.  They will know that “foregut fermenters” have a similar process except that the fermentation happens prior to the ingested material going through the stomach and are much more efficient than the “hindgut fermenters.”  This is why you may observe elephants, horses, or guinea pigs (all “hindgut fermenters” practicing coprophagy (http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/coprophagy).  This allows the animals to reuptake the bacteria that may have been lost from the colon, and allows them an attempt to digest the undigested material that passed right through…now you know…I’m sure the students will find this interesting!

I’m exhausted and am off to bed, big day tomorrow!

Happy Monday America!  Happy Tuesday Australia!

A great day today in Victoria and another to look forward to tomorrow!  I really wanted to ride the bike into school today but unfortunately the weather took a turn today and it rained most of the morning here.  Not surprisingly the rain made the rest of the day quite muggy and the added heat made it somewhat uncomfortable in class, but I managed to have a very successful day in the classroom!

The day started with the usual Friday morning meeting with the entire staff.  Again, there was nothing major to report about.  After the meeting, I had to book it over to the science center for period one.  It was “Bones,” and it was the first time that I had the class for myself! 

My cooperating teacher wasn’t there today so another teacher took her place and sat in the back.  The way it works at BSC, is when a teacher is not present at school, another teacher, who has a free period, is given materials to use for the lesson.  I think it is a great system, and keeps the school from having full time substitutes.  Many of the subs in the U.S. whom I have come across have been somewhat inexperienced and usually lack in classroom management skills.  Thankfully with this system at BSC, all the teachers are expected to take an “extra” once every 3 weeks, and know the students who they are going to be teaching; this makes classroom management much easier.

Back to “Bones.”  I started the lesson with a Smart Board presentation that asked the students to come to the board to label the human skeleton.  The students didn’t miss a one.  I then had a couple slides that asked the students to label the bones in a couple x-rays and then asked them if there was anything wrong with them.  A couple of the x-rays were perfectly normal and a couple had obviously something wrong.  I showed them what a broken clavicle looked like and what a broken ankle might look like.  They were really receptive to the x-rays and thought that was an interesting task.

I then moved onto introducing skeletal muscles.  After a couple slides asking students to think about what skeleton muscles look like and how they work, I asked the class what they wanted to know about them.  After a few students aid what they wanted to learn about, I handed out a work sheet that I created asking the students to use a table of Greek and Latin terms to determine what a few muscle names meant.  It then asked them to determine why the muscles were named the way that they were.  The worksheet concluded by asking the students to use various sources to answer a few though provoking questions.  Many of the questions were very similar to questions that students had asked earlier in the lesson.  This made me happy.

I received great feedback from the extra teacher in the class who was taking notes on my lesson.  It was nice to have yet another teacher give me feedback on my teaching style.

My next class was “Animal Inside.”  I gave the students some more time to finish an assignment that I assigned the prior lesson.  After, I had them work on an activity that asked the students to compare the teeth and jaw structure of different mammals.  Some of the students had no problem completing the activity.  Some of the students in this class refuse to pick up a pen to do any work unless you’re looking over their shoulder.  I don’t tolerate this and express to them that it is unacceptable to do nothing in class.  It really is a shame to see young adults not value their education.  Sometimes I want to call them out and tell them how lucky they are to have such a nice school with caring teachers.  They are also so lucky to have a science center like the one at BSC with more than enough resources for teachers to develop brilliant lessons.  It is in these students’ lives that I wish to make the most difference.

Since the year 7s were still at camp, my third period was free so I could plan for the practical during period 4 with my year 11s.  I spent most of the time refining my practical worksheet that I was going to give to the students to complete.  

The point of the practical was to get the students to use the microscope to view various samples.  I also wanted them to use this opportunity to make scientific drawings.  The students were given three specimens to look at: onion, banana, and elodea, a freshwater plant.   This would also allow them to see different kinds of cells.  Truly the only hazard was the stains that we used, Methylene blue was used to stain the onions and iodine was used for the bananas.  Methylene blue outlines the cell walls of the onion cells and iodine is used to stain bananas because it stains the starch of banana cells a deep purple.  The elodea didn’t need to be stained because the cells were of course green and didn’t need any more definition.  We also had some blue-green algae out to be used as an extension to the practical.  The algae were collected on my trip to Lakes Entrance with my cooperating teacher.  All in all the practical went well but I will need to use the next class lesson to finish up the practical. 

After a beer and some work after school, I left to go home.  I hopped on the bike and went for my daily ride around the neighborhood and down to the river.  I was ready for the weekend because my ride wasn’t very long, I felt a little bit lazy.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to take a trip up the coast past Lakes Entrance to Cape Conran to go fishing with my cooperating teacher.  I was so happy that she invited me to come along!  I’m hoping to catch some dinner!  I will take some pictures and post them tomorrow when I get home.

I’m currently watching preseason Australian football.  The Australian Football League (AFL) started today so I suspect the next few weeks are going to exciting around the house.  I’ve been told to support (again, not root for) Carlton Football Club of Melbourne since they are the “best team” in the AFL.  I can’t really argue with my host family.  In all seriousness, I think its best to keep an open mind to see which team that I like but from what I’ve seen and read about Carlton, I think they are pretty solid.

I will back to write tomorrow to talk about my trip fishing; hopefully it is successful!  

Well its getting toward the end of the day, and I'm about to head out to the year 7 camp just outside of town for the night.  Today has been great.  It seems like as I progress through this placement, the days keep getting shorter and shorter.  Time is definitely flying here in Australia!

I will be taking over "Bones" on Friday, so today, I observed the class complete their bone dissection lab.  Pretty basic.  I am going to start the students off on skeletal muscle and its role in bone movement.

The year 11 biology class went well.  My cooperating teacher took half of the class period to go over a long term project that we are expecting the students to complete in a few weeks.  I then took over and went over the basic features and care for light microscopes.  We will be using them during the lesson on Friday, I'm excited! 

I have the last period of the day off to write quickly in my blog and finalize my lesson for tomorrow's "Animal Inside" class.  I will be back to write sometime tomorrow night!

Internet is finally back!  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to post the last two until this morning when I arrived at school. 

I am writing this post, reflecting on my day while watching the Super Bowl, which is being re-run on ESPN here is Australia.  So far, we're not getting any of the excitng commercials.  I have been told that the Doritos and Honda commercials were the best of the lot.  I don’t expect to watch the full game because I already know who wins.  What a surprise to find that the Giants won; I would have never thought that they were going to come out of the season with any more than a winning record.  Tom Brady seemed unbeatable in the post-season.  Is it too early to start supporting* the Bengals in the Super Bowl next season? WHO DEY!

*I’m not allowed to say “root” here because in Australian, it is another term for coitus.  I think Australians might find "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during a 7th inning stretch comical!

Today started off in the faculty lounge where I had to figure out my new sign-in information for the school network.  I was given a netbook to use while working at school because my computer isn’t authorized to be hooked up to the school wireless system.  Oh well, at least I have a memory stick to use to transfer any files back and forth. 

After posting my blog entries and catching up on a few emails, I started working on a few lesson plans for “Animal Inside” regarding the digestive system.  So far, I’ve planned out about a weeks worth of lessons.  The key is to keep students engaged with the material. 

Before lunch, I wanted to get through a few chapters in the year 11 biology books to make sure that I was up to date on my content.  I am in no ways indicating that the focus of this class is the textbooks; rather, I am using them as tools to organize my lessons in a logical way.  The Cell Theory seems like a logical place to start right after the Scientific Method and the importance of observation.

Lunch was quick and I used much of the time to put together a short presentation on the Smart Board software for my “Animal Inside” class tomorrow.

Fourth period came around and I headed over to the science center to meet the “Bones” class.  A few of the students were asking about the Super Bowl game.  I had no idea; I tried to keep it off my mind today since it started around 11 am and finished around 2 in the afternoon; I didn't want to waste my time with the "East Coast Affair."  I could only tell them that I had predicted the Pats to win.  A couple of the males in the class asked me which team I supported.  Careful not to say “root,” I told them that I supported the Bengals.  “Who are they?” asked one of the students.  “Just an above par team who can’t seem to win post-season games,” I replied.  I also told them that they were the team from my home city.

Class started and the students organized into groups to work on matching different bone names to their corresponding pictures.  It was another day of memorizing…yippee (sarcasm)!  Memorization doesn't allow students in a science classroom to make much meaning of anything.  I really want to engage these students more in future lessons.  By the time the class ended, I could tell that the students were itching to leave because they were getting bored with going over term after term. 

I am struggling to come up with how I want to organize the lessons of this class.  Although the class is called “Bones,” I would reason that the students would need to know about skeletal muscle to truly understand how the bones move in the body, as well as the different levers that we use for various activities such as movement and lifting.  I’m sure more will come later regarding the direction of the lessons for this class.

After a science meeting directly following school, I came home, changed, and hopped on the bike to go for a ride around the neighborhood.  It was a beautiful day in the low 20s.  In fact it’s supposed to be similar weather for the rest of the week!  Another perk in East Gippsland...

While some of my week's worth of laundry is in the wash, I will reflect on my day.  It's really hard to believe that I've been in Oz for a week now.  The longer I'm here, the more I love it.  There is so much to do and I'm worried that I won't be able to do it all while I'm here!  

Today was the first day of school for the students at BSC.  After arriving, they congregated in various areas of the school for assemblies to welcome them back minus a few seventh graders had a hard time coping within the first few hours.  They could be seen throughout the day crying outside of the administration office due to the difficult transition.  I'm sure they'll find their niche within the next few days.

The assembly ended and students were asked to go to their first class.  It was the first and only class for me today, across campus at the science center, where all of my classes will be held.  "Animal Inside" is designated as a big picture physiology class focusing on the differing systems of animals.  It should be a fun class; I'm going to enjoy coming up with lessons!  I will be taking over the class relatively soon and will be responsible for teaching the digestive system.  Logically, I will start with the mouth.  It wouldn't make much sense to start at the other end.  

A couple of the students were interested if I knew or had met Zac Efron.  Who the hell is that?  I hope he's not the only American that they know of!  Maybe if they knew that the population of the USA is a little over three hundred million (Google), they may reason that the chances of knowing some guy is slim to none; even though I met Bill Clinton one time. Regardless.  One of the students asked if Ohio was in Texas.  Nope.  All were very kind and were very interested in where I came from.

After class, I made it over to the junior campus to start working on lesson planning and organizing my week ahead.  Its going to be busy but I have the new staff initiation at the local pub to look forward to next friday evening!  It sounds a little like grown-up hazing to me, but what the heck.  I was also invited to go camping next weekend with my cooperating teacher and her husband; Mom, Dad, aren't you proud!  My parents aren't into camping, but I'm more than open to the idea and would love to spend a night among snakes, spiders, and mozzies.  For us Americans, a mozzie is a mosquito in Australian.  Yes, I'm aware they speak English, but it feels like another language sometimes.  It was extremely nice to be invited to such occasions!

With a few lessons figured out for the next few weeks, I headed back over to the science center to observe another class after being invited by my other cooperating teacher.  This one, "The Origin of Species," was definitely right down my alley.  If I was a scientist in the 19th century, you could bet that Chuck Darwin and I would be great friends.  I am going to do my best to take over this class too, only if the workload of my other classes doesn't get too cumbersome.  I know I could handle it.

If you haven't noticed my Little Survey and Quiz to the right of this blog, I ask that you take part.  I also ask that you don't look up the answer to the quiz.  The answer will be given whenever you click "Submit".  (IF YOU ARE LOOKING AT THIS WONDERING WHAT THE HELL IS HE TALKING ABOUT, ITS BECAUSE I'M ALREADY HOME AND WROTE THIS POST MONTHS AGO AND MORE THAN LIKELY TOOK IT DOWN)

Laundry is done so I'm off to hang it up to dry overnight.  Primitive, huh?  I prefer it this way, you don't have to iron! It also saves energy, a prized commodity in Oz.

The first day went really well.  It started at my desk in the morning, waiting for the entire faculty meeting at 9:30.  I felt very welcomed with all of the teachers and faculty coming my desk to meet me; most were interested in the "gridiron" when they talked to me.  I don't know many people referring to football as that, but when you have soccer and Aussie Rules in Australia, the "gridiron" is a good distinctive term.  I was pleased to find another "yank" at the school.  He has been a teacher at BSC since the seventies and told me that he just never left whenever he arrived down under.  From my experiences thus far, I can understand why.

I sat in the back at the faculty meeting which took place in the junior campus library.  I was quite surprised when they introduced me in front of the entire faculty.  Yea, I was that American in the back.  After a long meeting about new policy and the formal introduction of the new principle, I was taken around the campus by one of the science teachers.  

He was incredibly helpful, and showed me the ins and outs of the college before taking me to the science center.  There, I was given a brief introduction to the Smartboards and some of the other technology.  After some helpful tips, he allowed me to mess around for a bit to get a feel for how to use the interactive white boards, which are such an important asset for every classroom of the 21st century.  I'm glad that I'll have some fluidity when I use them in front of the students.

Lunch was served soon after in the junior campus teachers lounge, consisting of meat pies, sandwiches, and a lot of gluten free options.  That is one thing that I've noticed, many gluten-free options.  Many of the restaurants that I've been to here have had a separate menu for people on a gluten-free diet.  I'm still unsure if it is due to an increased prevalence of celiac disease or wheat allergies in Australia.  There may be other reasons too.  You really don't see much of this accommodation in America.

After lunch, it was more meetings for the faculty, including a union meeting and a tutorial for the new computer system.  I only attended the tutorial of course, although it would have been interesting to sit in on the other.  I then met with my coordinating teacher and went over the schedule for the next few months and talked a strategy for the classes that I would be teaching.

I am currently going to be teaching a grade 11 biology class, a class called "bones", and another called "the animal inside."  I will be teaching students from grades 7-11 which will allow me to have a great experience with both middle school and high school students.

I arrived home after school a little after 5 and had a nice steak dinner with potatoes, mixed greens and purple carrots, which turned much of the dinner purple as well.  Seemed like an unusual vegetable.  Dinner finished and I decided to go on a ride on the "push bike" up the street and back to clear my mind prior to writing in my blog and a few emails before bed.  

I'm currently watching a 20/20 cricket match between India and Australia.  Since I know the rules now, I will spare you a few pages and just say that Australia is doing well!  Australians love their sport!  This is a great way to wind down the day and kick the feet up!  How 'bout a Victoria Bitter to go