A New Year!

Well the term is underway for everyone! I hope you all had a refreshing break and are rearing to go! Term One is always a fantastic term for science trips out to the beach, lake, river, streams, forests, the bush, and just outside the classroom! Get the children out observing, wondering and learning about our fantastic environment.
For me, I am again working in the science PLD world (along with Anne Barker), and looking forward to what the year brings. I have some PLD continuing on and some new schools too. I do love the new approach to PLD -rather than the old system of "you will do science", it's really up to the school! Whether it's just a small group of teachers within one school, or groups of teachers across schools within a kahui ako (or Community of Learning) or even an eclectic bunch of individual teachers wanting to focus on science, the PLD world's your oyster! I've been excited with schools and kahui ako that have looked at engaging in science and literacy together or science and maths, enabling science to be an authentic context for students. If you are interested in some support, do get in touch with Anne and I.
For the blog, I have a question for you all. What would you like to see in the blog this year? Has it been helpful in the past and worth continuing with? Oh, that's two questions... Well, regardless, I'm keen to hear what you would like me to share through the blog this year!

And a quick sciency thing to finish with. I've just gone for a walk along the beach here in Napier, before heading off to Wairoa tomorrow. Anyway, I thought I saw something in the sea but wrote it off as a rock. I stopped to watch the shags sitting on a tree and thought I wonder if there are fish in the sea -why else would the shags be here? On my return, I saw the dark shape again and realised it was a seal swimming around. I did try to take a photo (for a change, I thought of it early on, rather than too late!) and you can sort of see its head...

Taken at Ahuriri Beach by me!

It got me thinking again about the inference of there are fish here! The seal was swimming and also diving a bit too. I started thinking about the direct observations I can make -the pied shags and little black shags, the seal, the surf, the rocky shore, the temperature, wind speed, weather, other animals and humans taking advantage of the beach too. From all this, I could make a pile of inferences -I wonder how many children could make... and then how could we investigate those? Are the shags there because it's just their favourite perch? Is it because it's a good harvest ground? Do they fish at certain times? Science is of course about the observations but perhaps more importantly, it's about what we do with those observations too!
Well that's all for now! Do get in touch and share any ideas about the blog for this year, and of course, any PLD!
Paul