Support for long-term classroom planning and professional development. Information covering important topics for today's educators and parents. Task card series. Activities include cracking bar codes, solving puzzles, and learning to generalize. The TASK CARD series is based on a model that views science as an individualized process of creative inquiry and a traditional body of knowledge.
Students work alone or in cooperative groups to complete activities at their own pace.
Each student is responsible for a brief, individual write up explaining the how and why of the activity. In a sample activity, students discover patterns in the arrangement of squares that form number sequences and then write a general term for each sequence. In further activities, students search for patterns in the Fibonacci sequence and apply the Fibonacci sequence to a study of population. A related Web site offers free samples of TOPS lessons. TOPS Learning Systems 10970 S. Mulino Rd.