Rebecca UR - Introduction

My family at The Natural Bridge park

Hi everyone, my name is Rebecca Leahey. I currently live in Ormond Beach. I was born in Virginia but grew up in South Florida. I moved back to Virginia for awhile but couldn't resist the sun & humidity and have been back in Florida for the last 6 years. I am married and have two amazing kids that remind me everyday what's really important in life.

I am in my final year here at Daytona State College (YAY!!). I will be receiving my Bachelors degree in Secondary Earth/Space Science Education so I can teach Middle School. Because of this, my goal with this blog is a bit different than the other students. My project this semester is to develop two separate lesson plans for middle school students based on experiences in this class.

 Aerosol Size Map

My first lesson plan will require students to use data found online to create graphs, tables, and/or charts. The lesson plan will also require students to read and interpret graphs, something that we do a lot in this lab! The Florida Department of Education actually has a standard that requires middle school students to learn this so I will definitely be using this in my classroom someday.  I really wanted to use the interactive maps, like the one on the left, found at Earth Observatory.
The maps, however, do not contain any data that students can analyze and to create graphs with. So I have been scouring the internet for middle school appropriate sites that include data. I found one site My NASA Data that has a wealth of pre-made lesson plans along with links to other websites that my be useful. I've been going through, link by link, trying to find a site with hard data I need for my first project.