The Science Project Pathways tool allows teachers to easily customize the timeline and schedule assignments for all steps of a science fair project.
Plan, Assign, & Manage Student Science Projects
Do you have students do independent science projects? Science projects can offer an exceptional, personalized learning opportunity, but they can also be a challenge to plan and manage.
Science Project Pathways for Google Classroom is a free project scheduling tool that simplifies the process.
This tutorial walks you through the steps involved in creating and managing your Science Project Pathway.
1. Plan the Science Project
A Science Project Pathway is a customizable science project schedule with assignments you can add to Google Classroom for each step of the science project.
- You can access the Science Project Pathways tool by navigating to the Google Classroom area under the “Teachers” dropdown menu. Once on the Google Classroom page, choose “Explore Pathways.”
- From the Pathways page, click “Create Pathway” to start a new Pathway. (Pathways you have already created will also be available from this page.)
- Fill in the summary information, including selecting the class from the drop-down list and naming your Pathway.
- Click “Create Pathway” to move to the next step.
- A starter schedule is shown that lists all available assignments and suggested intervals (e.g., how long we recommend you allow for each step). This schedule breaks the science project into a series of smaller assignments. This approach helps students work through the project one step at a time, provides built-in check-ins, and can make the overall process easier to manage for teachers and students!
Note: Breaking the project into smaller steps is one of our recommended strategies for ensuring a smooth science project process and keeping students on track. See 11 Tips and Best Practices for Assigning and Managing Science Fair Projects for more suggestions.
- Check or uncheck the box to have notifications sent to you when it is time to make an assignment based on your Pathway. (You can turn this feature off at any time.)
- To begin customizing your schedule, enter the start date for the project.
- As shown below, the start date is used to initially populate the due dates on the Pathway based on suggested intervals between assignments.
- Enter the date applications are due for the city or county fair. (If there is no local fair, “uncheck” the box to remove this from your Pathway.)
Note: If the project is for a school science fair, there is a place to enter the science fair date at the bottom of the Pathway.)
- Choose the assignments to include. Go through the list of available assignments and check or uncheck assignments to customize your list.
Available assignments incorporate Science Buddies’ Science Project Guide resources and self-assessment tools to provide students guidance at each step of their project.
Note: Pathways created for grades 5-8 contain texts that have been graded-leveled for middle school readers.
- Confirm the due date for each assignment you will be using.
Reminder: The due dates shown are based on the start date you entered and the “interval” (how many days you want to allow) for each assignment. You can adjust the due dates or intervals for each assignment. Changing the date or interval for an assignment will automatically update the dates for subsequent assignments (based on the intervals). Tip! If you are trying to adjust the date using the date box and having trouble, click the calendar icon and select the date from the pop-up calendar.
Note: When customizing your Pathway, you can change the due dates and intervals, but you can’t currently make assignments in a different order or sequence than what is shown. With the exception of the Science Fair/Expo and Class Presentation, every assignment will have a due date that follows the previous assignment(s).
- Enter dates for the Science Fair/Expo and Class Presentation. These dates are not auto-populated and should be entered manually.
- Click “Save Schedule” to save the Pathway.
2. Assign Science Project Steps
After saving your Pathway, you can make individual assignments that will post directly to your Google Classroom.
- All assignments marked with a “check” are part of your Pathway. Assignments marked with an “X” are not part of your Pathway. (You can “edit” the Pathway to add assignments to the pathway. Please note that adding an assignment will automatically update all due dates that come after the assignment.)
- Use the “Assign” buttons to add assignments to Google Classroom.
- After clicking “Assign,” fill in the information for the Google Classroom assignment. When you click “Create Assignment,” the assignment will be added to Google Classroom for your students.
Note: When making assignments, the due date from the Pathway schedule is automatically entered on the assignment creation page. If you need to change the date, you will need to edit the Pathway.
- Continue adding assignments to Google Classroom. Assignments do not have to be added all at once. If you choose to space out assignments, we can send you reminders when it is time to make assignments from your schedule. (Note: This is an option you can turn on or off for your Pathway.)
- When viewing your Pathway, assignments that have an “Assign” button have not yet been assigned. Assignments that have a “View” button have been assigned. Clicking the “View” button will let you see how many students have completed the assignment.
3. Manage the Science Project Pathway
- View assignments. You can review and return assignments for your class by clicking the “View” button for an individual assignment in the Pathway or by using the Teacher Dashboard, from which you can view all assignments you’ve made.
- Make changes. If you need to make changes to the overall schedule, you can edit your Pathway at any time using the “Edit Schedule” button at the bottom of the Pathway. (Don’t forget to click “Save Schedule” after making changes.)
- Archive old pathways. Once you have completed a Pathway, you can archive it to separate it from any current Pathways.
4. Keep Families and Others Aware of the Schedule and Important Dates
- Use the “Share Schedule” button to generate a link you can use to share the schedule with parents, administrators, and others outside of your classroom. These users will not need to be logged in to view your Pathway.
We hope that using Science Project Pathways makes it easier to set up a science project schedule and oversee the steps of the project. If you try this new feature and have feedback, please let us know. You can reach us at scibuddy@sciencebuddies.org.
Note: Science Project Pathways are currently available only for educators with a Google Classroom account.
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