Model Lesson

I believe that models are a great way for students to learn and understand a concept. I chose to work with my students on earthquakes and the effect it can have on the environment. I had my students complete an activity where they built a skyscraper and then simulated an earthquake. They had to draw a picture of what their skyscraper looked like and what effect the earthquake had on their building. the next step was to reconstruct the building and reinforce it to with stand an earthquake. Then they followed the same steps as the first building. We also made a seismograph printout. The students simulated a small earthquake and tehn a major earth quake. we discussed the differences in the readings and the possible effects each earthquake would have in our area.

Natural DIsasters

Natural Disaster events always seem to shock the world. When you think about the ones that grab the attention of the world you think of earth quakes and tsunamis. Since i live in the south the main natural disaster that affects us are tornadoes. In my class once a week we talk about current events and science related topics. I like to make sure that my students are aware of what is going on in the world around them. At my school we have been part of different fund raiser to help the people of our community (those affected by the 2011 tornadoes) and also for hurricane relief through the red cross. Not only do we talk about current events but we also talk about past events that have effected our area and across the world.  One way to get them involved and aware of local agencies that help with disaster relief would be to invite some representative from various organizations in to speak with my classes. This was be informative and educational.

Backwards Design Lesson

This week I carried out a lesson that I planned using the backwards design. I use this method when planning my lessons. You should plan lesson by knowing what you want your students to know after you have taught the lesson.

My lesson centered around mining and its effects on the environment. I started my lesson my discussing different methods and natural occurrences that can disturb the environment. We discussed the steps of succession and looked at pictures that depicted the different stages. The next part of the lesson was hands on and the kids loved it. They participated in a mining simulation. They were each given a chocolate chip cookie. They were to outline the cookie on their paper before they started mining for the chocolate chips. This represented the land before mining. They were to carefully take out (Mine) the chips (Minerals). After they mined the minerals they were to trace the cookie on their sheet of paper. After they finished they write a description of what happened to the land as a result of mining. They saw that even though they were careful that the land was still disturbed. To wrap up the lesson we discussed ways that companies could help to restore the areas after they use it.

They seemed to enjoy it and of course they loved that they not only were learning but that they also got to eat their lesson.

Ask a Scientist....Still Waiting

I thought that I would ask a question that dealt with why do nails cells keep pushing up from their growth source when they die instead of like most cell breaking down and being replaced by a new cell. Also why do finger nails grow faster than toe nails. These both seem like pretty casual questions. I am hoping to get an answer before school starts back so I can share with my students. This is a topic that they would find interesting.

This happens often with technology in that we want an immediate response and rely on it to much at times. I have found that if I have technology built into my lesson for the day that I have a back up plan. I have had too many cases where technology failed me and had to scramble to find soemthing to fill in with.

Web 2.0 Tools

Web 2.0 Tools.

I will admit when I read over the course project and saw that we would be required to present our project with a web based tool I thought oh no I have to learn how to use a new tool in a short amount of time.

Animoto- I was exposed to this tool this year from our curriculum specialist. I love this but you can only do a 30 second video in the free version. I do not know if I would use it enough to pay for a subscription.

Museum Box- I would love to use this when I go over a new scientist/ person in class. I think that my students would also like this tool.

ZOHO- I liked what I saw when i explored this site. I want to play around with it a little more. I signed up for an account.

My Brain Shark- This tool would be great especially if you teach several classes and wanted to make sure that they each got the same information. I like the thought if being able to narrate the slides. I have a program that I can already do this with. It is called keynote. I have put many of my daughters favorite books into this program.

Prezi- I was briefly introduced at the end of the school year. I believe that this maybe the tool that i decided to use for this project. I do like that you can embed videos  This a great
 way to share with other teachers.

When I think about using a presentation tool I want it to be fairly uncomplicated to use. I also would like for it to be one that I could teach my 7th grade students to create presentations for class projects.

Amusement Parks

The subject that I chose to investigate was energy and the forces and transfer of energy. The physical science teachers at my school end the year with an amusement park themed unit. The kids are always excited for this part of their instruction. An amusement park is something that most kids are familiar with and can relate the subject matter to it.

The webite: http://www.gamenet.com/game/Simulation-Games-Amuse-Park/ is where they can build their own amusement park. They can build rides and attract people to their park.

At an amusement park you can see all the forces of energy at work. I would also have them build rides to show off at our end of the year parent night. They would have to make them scale. This would pull in math standards to the unit

Heat transfer activity.

This week I had my daughter help me with the experiment. She helped me choose what materials to use. We chose foil, cotton cloth, plastic wrap and a coffee filter. After 30 minutes the water in the cup with the foil over it was a little warmer than the rest but only by 1 degree. There wasn't a stand out of the materials. There was just a few degrees difference between all the materials. I was expect ing there to be more.

I could see where this would help students in their study of heat transfer, conduction and convection but it would not be a very exciting demonstration. So if I could relate it to food that they eat the they would be more involved and could learn through a hands on activity.  I could divide the class into groups. Each group would be given a food to work with. For example: pizza, biscuit, baked potato and a hamburger. They would have to design a container that would help keep the food hot. We could test these out. I picked all of these foods because I would have access to them from the cafeteria.

Focusing on the E in Stem

The question this week that I explored was how do different surfaces affect the momentum of marbles. I decided that I would get some input from my ELT group. We talked about the marbles, the force it would take to put the marbles into motion and how the momentum could be changed or affected. We looked at the different surfaces that were in our room that we could use. We decided to use the desktop, the part of the board that holds the markers and the concrete outside of my room.
I had the students predict what would happen on each surface with the momentum of the marble. They wrote this is their science notebook. As we conducted the experiment we found that the marbles rolled great on the smooth desktop. They did not fair as well on the bumpy concrete pad. We talked about our findings and how they compared to their predictions.
The next time that I conducted the experiment with a whole class I would have a few surfaces set up for the experiment and then have the students to brainstorm ways that the experiment could be improved and another surface that they could explore.
The goal that I would have for my students would be for them to see how different surfaces could affect the momentum of objects and the amount of force exhibited on an object would also affect the momentum.

Scientific Inquiry Lesson

This week my students did an activity to show how viruses travel. They were part of a simulation activity. The students were at a "Party". They were going to interact with other students and share their "soda". I placed the students with an assigned partner. they were to write down the names of two other classmates that they were going to interact with. If another students came up to them they had to share with them also. They had to pick up a container off of the lab table. Some containers had flour and some had baking soda in them. AS they interacted they had to share their powders. One person would pour their contents into the other persons container mix it around and then split it into the two containers evenly. As they were socializing they had to keep up with who they interacted with and in what order. At the end I poured vinegar into each container. If it bubbled then they contracted the virus. They had to work with their partner to figure out who had the virus first and the order to which it could have been passed. This activity was easy to relate to a real world scenario. They kids loved it. I played music in the background so it really felt like they were at a party. It was a little challenging but overall it worked pretty well. It still needs a few kinks worked out but I will do this activity again.