Hi Everyone,

I would like to share two projects that I have developed to support the
teaching of grade 10 general science and grade 11 biology.

wikispaces is an additional resource available for teachers. The sites
created cannot be googled, which does help. Upon application, wikispaces
will suppress all advertising, also a good thing.

I did develop them entirely. These are my photographs. I am a teacher in
school district 92 (Nisga'a) http://www.nisgaa.bc.ca
The district is trying to encourage infusion of ICT into the general
curriculum. The last two wiki sites were my response to that district's
call. The first wiki was for the sake of several students.

http://biology20.wikispaces.com is situated in northern Saskatchewan.

I developed this wiki to assist students in their review of a field trip
studying "ecosystems" of the boreal forest. Sometimes there is not enough
time to answer the significant questions during the time of the trip.
Students often chatter to each other and miss significant features.
It was also to help the very young mothers and heavily pregnant students
who could not get away to the field trip. The main point of the wiki was
that I could introduce the topic before the actual field trip during class
time, and then after the trip, the students had something to review in
addition to their own photographs. The English teacher (ELA) also used the
field trip to encourage students into writing about their reactions to the
boreal forest.

http://ecosys.wikispaces.com is to scaffold grades 10 and 11 students
completing their "ecology and ecosystems" project, where the "Prescribed
Learning Outcome" (standard) requires students to 'explain' an ecosystem.
It is an example that shows that ecosystems can be extremely local.
Vocabulary is not very well developed amongst the students, so I chose to
scaffold the assignment in the way that I did, by many links to pictorial
examples. Quite a few adults found the site quite funny (humourous). It is
set in the northern village of New Aiyansh British Columbia

http://volcanotour.wikispaces.com is similar to the first wiki. Not every
student could go on the field trip. I wanted to set students some choice
in the range of questions that they could answer.
My experience of developing wiki sites is that it takes a lot, a lot, a
lot, of time, and it is not clear that the effort expended yields any
particular results, although the students do appreciate it.
One comment made by a student to another teacher who went on the trip was
"it took a stranger to show us appreciation of what's in our own
backyard". Another comment was "I didn't know that rocks could be so
interesting."

Thanks for your interest,
Peter Woof
B.Sc., B.Eng. Grad. Dip. Ed.