21st Century Learning tools.

There are many online resources available for today’s teachers. The plethora of available resources can make finding valuable, useful resources a time consuming challenge. That is why I not only search on my own but rely on other teachers to find valuable resources. In designing a unit on electricity for my enrichment class I was able to borrow from veteran science teachers as well as find several online resources that will help to make this unit fun and exciting for my students.
The website that I found to be the most exciting is the Internet Plasma Physics Education Experience (IPPEX) website. IPPEX is a site that has online interactive physics modules. These modules can help students gain a stronger understanding of physics concepts while utilizing technology and saving money on resources. IPPEX can be found at http://ippex.pppl.gov/interactive/electricity/. Another website that can use in my classroom is the BBC Schools website. This site can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/ and is a great site for elementary and middle school students. This site provides educational games and simulations that help students grasp and practice scientific concepts.
Both of these sites are valuable resources that I can use in my classroom to help my students experience science concepts in ways that we would otherwise not be able to do in our classroom setting. These sites are among many that I can use to create online learning experiences for my students. I like to periodically use online learning experiences to help my students become better researchers and more technology literate.
Being able to search and research online is a necessary skill for today’s students. With the large number of websites out there students need to be able to determine whether a site is useful and students need to be able to find and take information from these sites. The two sites that I have chosen for this exercise provide the opportunity for students to become better researchers, but also provide them with opportunities to become 21st-century scientifically literate citizens. Both of these sites have modules that lead students through a discovery process. When used in conjunction with other sites and classroom experiences students will gain a firm understanding of the scientific concepts being studied. These sites also allow students to use and practice their problem solving skills through scientific inquiry.

Exploring Heat Transfer

Exploring heat transfer in mugs leads me to think about a dilemma that I have every year as a teacher which is my coffee or tea getting cold before I can get it drank. I chose to solve this dilemma by purchasing a coffee mug warmer, but I also could have explored using a lid of some sort to help keep my beverage warm. When choosing materials to top my mug and act as an insulator I naturally think about materials that are often used to hold or contain beverages or as insulators in the kitchen. I chose paper, corrugated cardboard, foil, and Styrofoam as the tops for my mugs.
I naturally expected the Styrofoam to act as the best insulator followed by the corrugated cardboard, then the foil and the paper to act as the worst. In conducting this experiment I found that I was mostly correct in my hypothesis of which topper would act as the better insulator. The Styrofoam was by far the best insulator and the paper was the worst. Where I was wrong was that the foil was a better insulator than the corrugated cardboard. I believed that the corrugated cardboard would act as a better insulator than the foil due to having more air pockets. They were very close in temperature, but the foil mug was warmer. This may have been due to the fact that the steam from the hot water built up on the corrugated cardboard causing it to become soggy. These results may also have been due what I feel was a flaw in the experiment. The mug with the foil was poured last and the mug topped with the cardboard was poured first. The small difference in time may account for the results. If I were to conduct this experiment again I would take an initial temperature for each mug and measure the change in temperature rather than just the end result. This would allow me to have more accurate results in measuring the change in temperature from the time the water enters each individual mug.

One way that I try to make this concept relevant to student lives is by having them explore why hot fudge sundaes come in plastic containers, milk shakes in Styrofoam, and blizzards in paper. The students then design and construct their own experiments to answer this question. Students may not care why their hot fudge sundae is in plastic, but who doesn't like to experiment with ice cream! In the end they are rewarded with ice cream!

Guided Inquiry.

This weeks inquiry question that I addressed was what was how different surfaces affected the momentum of a marble. I explored this question using several different flooring samples, two meter sticks, the plunger from an old pinball game, a balance, a stop watch and one marble. I created a track across the different flooring samples out of the meter sticks and then used the plunger to send the marble across the flooring samples. I then took the mass of the marble and multiplied it by the velocity of the marble. To make sure that the only variable was the different surfaces I marked and made sure that the plunger was pulled back the same distance each time. My hypothesis was that the marble would have less momentum on surfaces like the plush carpet and would have more momentum on surface like the ceramic tile due to an increase in the amount of friction between the marble and the carpet. What I was able to discover was that my hypothesis was correct. The marble had less momentum on the carpeted surfaces due to the increased amount of friction. This experiment was not too challenging as I have had my students work through a structured inquiry project answering a very similar questions. Due to that fact completing this inquiry assignment was not too much of a challenge. If I were to modify this experiment I might add a second marble and have the students see what happens to the momentum when the two marbles collide. After completing this exercise I believe that I might have my students complete this activity as a guided inquiry rather than a structured inquiry activity this year. This will be a lot more fun and interesting for my students and allow them to use their problem solving skills.

Exploring Cells

This week I taught an inquiry lesson on the differences between plant and animal cells. In this lesson students were able to use microscopes to compare plant and animal cells. Then students used that information to build models of both plant and animal cells. To see examples of student work, or you could visit my webpage that has pictures of student projects. (Disclaimer: The web page is all torn up because I am totally revamping it for next year!) The lesson had some minor kinks in it and that caused me to reign in the students more than I should have. It was not taught in a classroom setting, but in a camp setting. Due to this there was no graded assessment of the student projects and student motivation was not a problem at all. All of the students had a great time exploring cells.

http://mrs-tate.wikispaces.com/CELLabrate+Chapters+2+and+3

Cruel and Unusual Punishment!

Just looking ahead at week 6 discussion!! To make us dream of having 50,000 dollars to spend on a reform. I think my problem will be to narrow down all my ideas. This will drive my husband more nuts than anything because I already have a brain that doesn’t quit and I need to talk my ideas out. Could be an interesting few days!!

Global Warming - Inquiry Experiment Question #8 and #9

This inquiry experience could raise many good questions and good debate within a classroom. I hypothesized that when the ice melted the water in the bowl would not overflow, and in my experimentation found that to be proven correct. I see a few problems with the experiment that would not make it possible to use in class without modifications. It took longer than 40 min. for the ice to melt and that would not work in the allotted class time. I also think that if student's were doing the research themselves they would encounter a lot of nonfactual information and be responsible for weeding these out. For younger students this could be a huge problem.

Not too many years ago people were worrying about global cooling, people panicked and jumped on the band wagon, companies profited, and scientists were wrong. As a person who tends to not jump on the band wagon, I have yet to see enough irrefutable evidence to support global warming or to support the theory that humans are a primary cause of global warming.

I do not live under the illusion that humans have no effect on the climate, I am just not yet convinced that human impact is the major contributor to climate change. Joel Hood a reporter from the Chicago Tribune reported on findings from Northern Illinois University that denser corn and soybean fields in the Midwest are causing cooler temperatures, thus proving the impact of humans(http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-05-11/health/ct-met-weather-crops-20100511_1_water-vapor-climate-scientists-midwest). To believe that humans can cause large change or control climate is almost laughable.

In looking at the geographic and climate history of Illinois alone, I feel that the Earth has cycles that it will go through throughout its life. At one point in Illinois' history, it was ocean front property, many years later it was covered by large amounts of tropical vegetation that scientists, through the fossil record have determined was much like a rain forest. This vegetation was then covered by a glacier that was around three miles thick. I would say that Illinois has experienced “global warming and cooling” before people even entered the fossil record. With more recent evidence, the University of Illinois and other institutions have reported that the Arctic Sea ice levels are dropping and the Antarctic Sea ice levels are rising. Researchers from NASA have also reported that ocean temperatures have actually been cooling since they began research in 2003 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025). Al Gore and many scientists have provided evidence for global warming, but when looked at within a larger and longer time context it is so minimal that it does not seem out of the ordinary for Earth. Unfortunately for a lot of science today it is tainted by the media and by corporate and government influence. Until it is proven with unbiased research, I am not likely to jump on the bandwagon of global warming.

This week’s assignment has been a bit overwhelming. After reading all the resources and watching all of the videos and visiting all of the sites I thought that I had an understanding of what a STEM lesson was and realized that I often incorporate these aspects into my teaching. I also realized that I was familiar with the 5 E’s lesson model from my undergraduate work. I really thought that designing the lesson would be somewhat easy, that was, until I started taking what I had written out on paper and began putting it into the provided template.

When I read about the 5 E’s lesson model in Chapter 5 of Becoming a better science teacher: 8 steps to high quality instruction and student achievement, I realized that this was something that I was taught in my teacher preparation courses, and was doing in my classroom. I wanted to create a STEM lesson that I would be using in the fall when school started and began working it out on paper using the Illinois State Standards and the district curriculum. When I had a solid plan down on paper and had my labs, worksheets, and assessments completed I began to enter my information into the lesson plan template. Who knew that a seven page document could elicit such anger and frustration from me? I realize, after my very rational husband pointed out, that a portion of it was probably my hormones as I am seven months pregnant and prone to crazy mood swings right now. I really felt that the template provided was overly confusing, repetitive, and not something that a teacher would realistically use.

It took me way too long to fill in the template, but when it was all said in done I have a lesson that I can use in my classroom this fall. I can use this lesson to introduce my students to inquiry and incorporate the components of a STEM lesson. I will continue to use the 5E’s lesson model, and incorporate the components of a STEM lesson, but outside of class would never plan a lesson using the template that was provided.

Test Post

This is just a test post to see how thing look.