PowerPoint Science: Can PPTs help show the exciting side of science?
Posted by: Peter Rillero in All Grade Levels, Classroom Best Practices, Elementary School Science, Great Science Software, High School Science, Instructional Leadership, Middle School Science, Science Activities, tags: biology, chemistry, Microsoft, physics, PowerPoint, science instructionAs the novelty of PowerPoint presentations in the K-12 classroom fades, the dim lights and streams of text could inspire sleep instead of excitement in science. There are ways that science can be made interesting through PowerPoints. Interactions, great pictures and graphics can really help make a point and share a story.
Fortunately many teachers and people who support education are willing to share their efforts. Here are several powerful sites for science PowerPoint presentations. Of course, with any collections of resources, not all are great so you must browse through and pick and modify. I think combinations of interactive and exciting elements from diverse PowerPoints can make you have a presentation with many strong elements but that is tailored for your students and curriculum.
Impressive Large Collections
Pete's Science PPTs
Pete’s Science PowerPoints This site has layers and layers of ppt resources.
World of Teaching: Science Good PowerPoint presentations that are rated and organized by biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and physics.
Science by Jefferson County Schools
Earth Science and Astronomy and Elementry Science at Nebo School District
Smaller Niche Collections
Chalkbored PPT Title
Powerpoint Physics These present high school level physics PPTs that are animated.
Neuro-Jeopardy - Jeopardy games are a popular review mechanism. This one is on neurobiology.
Normal Community High School Biology Powerpoints I honestly thought this was a national organization when I saw the layout and the biology PowerPoints. This is a great achievement!
Chalkbored Chemistry Powerpoints These folks show some of the promise in this medium.
Our Solar System: Tech Learning Center
Resources for Sharing PowerPoints
Assigning Activity Objects and PPTs with Adaptive Curriculum
Adaptive Curriculum. With student subscriptions teachers not only assign great interactive science Activity Objects but they can also assign or provide any online resources. So students can easily access great PowerPoint presentations without remembering complicated addresses. For instance in the picture to the right a lesson plan is being created with the Activity Object “Color Mixing: Paints and Lights” and is combined with two PowerPoint presentations.
Entries (RSS)
Dr. Rillero,
Thanks for including our resource in your blog. We very much appreciate your positive comments. Most of the work has been done on the Chemistry website at http://www.unit5.org/chemistry . It has only been in the last two years that we’ve began our biology (www.unit5.org/biology ) and physics (www.unit5.org/physics ) sites.
Have a Great New Year!
Jeff Christopherson
HI Jeff,
You are most welcome. I just visited your chemistry site and it is also great. I really like the PowerPoint describing the Golf Ball Lab.
Keep up the great work at Normal Community High School!
Peter
Peter,
Thank you for linking to my PowerPoint lessons (Chalkbored Chemistry PowerPoints). One correction: you said, “These folks show some of the promise in this medium”, but it’s just me – one folk
. I developed those lessons over a seven-year period as a high school chemistry teacher. I don’t teach chemistry anymore. I posted my lessons to the Internet because I didn’t want that work to go to waste. Plus, too often teachers are not given the kind of quality resources they need to succeed in the classroom. I like the idea that thousands of teachers and students are benefiting from my lessons.
Having recently discovered your blog, I have to say that I am impressed with the quantity and quality of your entries. I appreciate the research that goes into each entry and your candid analysis of issues. For example, your WolfQuest review (Oct. 2) was intriguing. I haven’t used this software, so I can’t comment on it specifically. It sounds like other educational titles that I have seen. Too often, we give a free pass to educational software, allowing effort to trump effectiveness. I also enjoyed your blog entry about students using two mice (Aug. 19). What a great idea – simple, yet elegant. This is the kind of application that would not normally arise outside of education but that should exist.
Keep up the good work,
Jeremy