The Animals of Chernobyl

For anyone that grew up in the 80's, the Chernobyl accident in 1986 was a huge news event. The nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, which is located in what is now Ukraine, suffered a meltdown which ejected a huge plume of radioactive material into the sky.

The radiation that was released still haunts the area almost 30 years later. In this story, we see biologist Timothy Mousseau exploring the wildlife of the 1000 square mile uninhabited zone. While it looks like nature has reclaimed this area that was once inhabited by people, a closer look reveals a different story. Though wildlife has returned the biodiversity in the area is about half of what it should be, meaning many types of wildlife are not living there.

Another issue is the mutations being found in the creatures living in the shadow of Chernobyl. The radiation that remains in that area caused mutations in animal behavior and the actual animals themselves. With the recent Fukashima Reactor meltdown in Japan, it is important that we learn from the mistakes we have made that have damaged our environments.

The video does allow us a glimpse into a world that we would not otherwise be able to visit.

Here is another video available on YouTube. It is special that Discovery Channel did a few years ago that looked at the Chernobyl area and how wildlife had reclaimed it.

Chernobyl image from: http://cdn0.cosmosmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/Chernobyl%20nuclear%20meltdown%20radiation.jpg

Edmodo Snapshot Tool: Free Common Core Based Assessments

OK... so the Common Core has been a challenge for many over the last few years, but hopefully this tool will make your life a little bit easier!

Edmodo has been a growing LMS (Learning Management System) for the last few years and it has grown to be a very useful tool in that short time. It is available on the web and as an app for just about all devices, and it creates a safe, teacher controlled environment that students and teachers can use to extend their learning outside the traditional walls of their classrooms.

In Edmodo, teachers can share links to websites or materials, post reminders, updates, assignments, and even host inline discussions. In addition there has been a custom quizzing feature that has allowed you to create your own quizzes that you can use to assess your students. The quizzes are saved so you can use them again, and they also can grade themselves and display the results data in some very helpful ways. It even adds students' results to a grade book.

It gets better though! Edmodo Snapshot has just been added to Edmodo for you to use. It is free and just becomes a part of your existing Edmodo account if you have one. What it is, is a collection of questions for Grades 3 -12 based on Common Core Math and ELA standards. You can assign "snapshots" to your students and they show up as a quiz that needs to be taken. The quizzes are based on and aligned with the Common Core so it is great practice for the exams.

As much as I hate the thought of practicing by taking tests, this is the world we live in right now, and this tool can help you give your students practice on these types of assessments, while also providing you with data that can show how your classes are doing on particular standards. You can also drill down to individual students and see how they perform.

Hopefully this data can be helpful to guiding instruction in covering topics that students have trouble in or pinpoint areas a particular students is struggling in to help devise a strategy to help them.

I think Edmodo is a great tool, and this Snapshot tool makes it even more appealing to me. Check out the short video above describing what it is, and if you are interested take a look at the video below to learn more about how to use it.

Here is a great video from Megan Wall on YouTube:

Create Self Grading Quizzes with Google Forms and Flubaroo

This tool has been shared before, but due to the improvements in quality and ease of use I think it is worth sharing again.

One of the lesser know tools in Google Drive is Google Forms. This tool allows you to create a number of different questions that can be assigned through email or hyperlinks. The results from these questions are automatically gathered into a Google Spreadsheet. It makes it incredibly easy to gather information from multiple sources and compile it in one place.

If you create a quiz made up of multiple choice, list, or very specific text answers you can even make the quiz self grading!  By using the Flubaroo Add-on (formerly a script) you can choose an answer key that the program will use to grade all of you results. It will even create a new sheet with the students' graded results and an item analysis of all of the questions.

It is an easy and free way to create assessments that grade themselves and save you time.

Check out the video below to see how.