While hitting the ground running is often important, having a less stressful beginning to the new school year is key for both teachers and students to setting themselves up for a more collaborative and successful school year.

While we cannot completely eliminate the stress of doing something we all have not done for 3 months (!!!) easing into science by using a low pressure, but meaningful activity is just what the psychologist ordered.

In this one- to two- day Back to School activity, designed for a high school Earth and Space Science classroom, students share their own thoughts and feelings about the world around them. which helps in building a supportive classroom community while they are observing and reflecting on the natural and human-caused phenomena around them.

Why and how does this learning strategy work?

The main idea is to begin the new school year and your Earth science class low-stress. This benefits both students and teachers as we often find getting back to doing something we are rusty on rough (translation for non-teachers: we are barely holding it together and are ten seconds from crashing out, because we are only about 50% sure we still know how to participate in society at large, let alone teach). So rather than continuously wondering about the 10,000 things that can go wrong (but never will) in the first few days of the new school year, we can combine chemistry, social-emotional learning, and classroom community-building and get to know our students a little bit before we hit them with climate change, seismic waves, and continental drift.

Student Learning and Performance Objectives:

1. Share your own thoughts and feelings about the world around you.

2. Observe, reflect, and share what comes to mind at each station.

What's included:

1. 11 slides that introduce, explain, and guide the teacher and students.

2. Detailed teacher notes on prep, main lesson, and follow up activities.

3. Detailed student directions.

4. 10 station ideas, along with a link to a document that contains the printouts for each station.

5. Student Learning and Performance Objectives

6. Materials list

7. Follow up discussion questions

8. SEL connections