Crayfish Tips If you're having any trouble with your crayfish staying alive, you may want to try these tips. 1. Increase the amount of water in the tubs to at least 3 inches. 2. Change the water on Monday and then again on Wednesday and on Friday. 3. The clean water change on Friday afternoon will keep the crayfish from the weekend die off. 4. Some teachers were not able to set the water out 24 hours ahead. We obtained dechlorination drops from the fish store. We saw no negative problems with the crayfish from the chemicals. 5. Plants in the tubs are important. Use the Elodea. It is also a food source. 6. An alternative food source (can also be used in addition to cat food as well as by itself). We feed the crayfish small cut up pieces of raw potatoes. The pieces can be put directly into the tubs and don't affect water quality quickly. 7. The presence of the potatoes as a continual food source has cut down on attacks by crayfish on each other, but not eliminated it. Molting crayfish need to be put in a separate container until they harden up again. They will most likely be attacked otherwise. --Chris Sheridan, Lake Washington School District

Seed Sprouter Tips If you’re having any problems with seeds sprouting, you may want to try these tips. 1. It is very important to make sure the seed sprouter is clean before using it. A few drops of bleach in the cleaning water will clean off the unwanted materials. 2. The water used in the seed sprouter must be prepared with the recipe in the FOSS teacher guide. Also, the water should be poured over the sprouter as scheduled according to the directions in the teacher guide. 3. Remove any moldy seeds immediately and use the bleach water as directed at that time. 4. Friday afternoon care is important if the sprouter is to go over a weekend. --Chris Sheridan, Lake Washington School District

Plant and Animal Care This module uses living organisms. For more information on organism care, visit this module's Teacher Resources section and click on the Plant and Animal Care icon. If the icon isn't visible, scroll down. For an overview of all FOSS California Living Materials Cards, click here.

General FOSS CA Tips (3-5) Have students use highlighters on vocabulary words in their notebooks as they build word banks that go with each investigation. The FOSS Science Resources book is very engaging for students and relates well with the activities. The reading pieces are short, so they can be done as homework and re-read multiple times in class to reinforce understanding of key content and still not be excessively time heavy. To help with time management, we highly recommend using able students to set up and help clean up materials needed for each activity. We recommend teaching science in the morning, first thing or after recess, so that you have an opportunity to set up materials. The morning also has the added bonus of having both teacher and students fresh, with plenty of energy to give to these fun and engaging activities. Afternoons often find both students and teacher tired and lacking the energy necessary for focusing, problem solving, and making thoughtful connections. I-Checks and Response Sheets are great to use for self- and peer-assessment discussions. One rewarding strategy is to have students respectfully critique and defend their ideas using data and other evidence to support their positions. A rolling materials cart is useful as a space saver. The cart can be positioned centrally with the materials needed for an investigation activity and then rolled out of the way once students have their materials and are ready to start the activity. It can again be rolled out for collecting materials and easily taken to the sink area or counter area for clean up. We have noticed that when activities are introduced with a question, both teaching and learning are improved. You will find that this lead question helps frame the lesson and ensures that the inquiry process leads eventually to the data and interpretations needed to develop an explanation of the original question. Students will find that writing this lead question in their notebooks will help them develop a context for the various parts of the investigation and collection of data and lead naturally to an attempt to explain their answer to the original question. Their notebooks will make more sense and be more likely to show an understanding of relationships and connections and a clear expression of a conclusion supported by evidence. We noticed that when this lead question was missing, lessons and notebook entries tended to look more like unconnected statements and data charts.

Scaling PDF documents When you print any of the student sheets, lab notebook sheets, or assessment masters you have downloaded from FOSSweb, you may see a difference in scale between the original printed sheet and the downloaded sheet. This doesn't usually matter, but in some cases, you will want the scale to be the same (for example, to match the index card for the anemometer in the Weather and Water Course for middle school). To make sure this happens when you print a pdf file, there is an option on the print window that pops up "Page scaling." Your default is probably "fit to printable area." To get the original size, change this category to "none" before printing.

Adhesive-Dot Color May Vary The color of the adhesive dots included in your kit may vary from the color specified in the teacher guide.

Science Notebook Index Templates Below are downloadable PDFs of science notebook index templates that can be printed for students to insert into their notebooks. Consider how much room your students will need to write when selecting a template. Four-page index template. This index has 6 to 8 letters per page. Works well for grades K-2. Two-page index template. This index has 12 to 14 letter per page. Works well for grades K-8. One-page index template. This index has all the letters on one page. Works well for grades 3-8. For more information on using these index sheets with notebooks, see page 15 of the FOSS Notebook Folio. --Brian Campbell