Science Fair: 11-25-08

I had a great time judging the science fair in Elk Point today. I feel like it was a great experience for me, since it was something I had never done before. I had the opportunity to judge some of the physical science projects for 5th grade. Most of the students that I judged were very knowledgeable about their project and had very nice displays. Some of the projects that I saw were an egg float and paper towel absorbancy. In my opinion, these were two of the best displays that I looked at personally. Both boys were very organized and had pictures and demonstrations of their projects. I was very impressed with many of the other projects displayed as well. I thought that all participants did a wonderful job and did a lot of hard work to accomplish their end products.

work day 11-20-08

I was very grateful for the work day on Thursday. It gave my group and I the opportunity to decide what we would do for our final project. It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do for our lesson plan and activity. I admit that we were a little confused at first about how each group was supposed to tie into one another, but once we figured it out we really got going on our lesson. We decided to work with solids, liquids, and gases. We thought it would be a great idea for 4th grade students. We also found many interesting activities that the students can do with this concept.

11-13-08 work day

Today was a very beneficial, helpful work day for the whole class. However, Shauna and I had already completed our second lesson plan earlier this week. I was glad that we went over all that was required in our lesson plans though, because Shauna and I discovered that we were missing a trade book for our lesson. We searched through many books that we could get from the campus library and found one that we think will work perfectly with our lesson.

11-6-08

In class today, I was excited to be able to create our own instructions for the activity. My group was a little unsure of what to do at first, but as we began to experiment, we started to comprehend our task even better. In our first cup, we put a piece of potato along with fresh water that had no salt added. In our second cup, we put a piece of potato along with water that had been mixed with 1 tablespoon of salt. In both cups, there was not much change. The pieces of potato still sat at the bottom of the cup. However, when we got to our third piece of potato in our third cup, we decided to add 4 tablespoons of salt with our water. This time we noticed a big change! We noticed that our potato was floating in the water. There was so much salt, that it created a kind of bouyancy for our potato. It was very interesting to see the differences that the salt made in the water.

Constructivism and the 5E's

Constructivism is basically a method where students are in charge of their own learning. However, it is up to teachers to facilitate the constructivistic learning process. Teachers should promote and provide opportunities for students that encourage and support the building of understanding. The 5E model consists of: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. Engage is when the students first encounter and identify the instructional task. Here is where they make connections between past and present learning experiences. Explore is when students have the opportunity to get directly involved with the materials. Students build a base of common experiences by working in teams, which assists them in the process of sharing and communicating. Explain is the point at which the learner begins to put the abstract experience through which he/she has gone into a communicable form. Communication occurs between peers, the facilitator, or within the learner himself. Elaborate is when the students expand on the concepts they have learned, make connections to other related concepts, and apply their understandings to the world around them. Evaluate is an on-going diagnostic process that allows the teacher to determine if the learner has attained understanding of concepts and knowledge. It can occur at all points along the continuum of the instructional process.

class 10-30-08

Today Shauna and I got to present our lesson to the class. I was a little bit nervous, but I was also excited because I felt that we had a good, strong, relevant topic. I feel that overall, our lesson, powerpoint, and activity all went really well. We covered a lot of good information and the class was very willing to participate and answer questions. I think that everyone really enjoyed our tornado in a bottle activity as well. I think that all-in-all our lesson was well thought out and was also received very well by the class.

class 10-28

I thought today was another great day of presentations. Once again, each group did a great job of sharing their specific activity and safety tips. I really like the experiment with the elephant toothpaste, as I believe younger students would as well. I was unaware that the mixture of those items would cause it to foam. I thought that all the groups did a wonderful job of pointing out any safety tips that would be of concern when doing the experiments with students.

class 10-23

I thought that Thursday's class was very fun, interesting, and educational. I learned about a lot of different activities and topics that can be used in a science classroom. I also learned a lot about the different safety tips that go along with those activities. I think that the jell-o activity about mixtures was very good. It would relate to students on a personal level, and there were excellent safety tips about not spilling water and being careful with the hot water. I thought, however, that all the groups did a great job presenting their activities!

Safety, 10-16-08

I think that safety was a very important topic to cover on Thursday. It is important that we are able to educate our own students in the area of safety, not only in the science classroom, but also when they are online. Personally, I feel like I didn't learn a whole lot of new information on Thursday, however, I think it was a good idea to brush-up on what I already knew. Safety is not something that should be forgotten in any classroom. Since the internet is used more and more in the classroom, teachers need to remember that internet safety can also be an issue.

10-14-08

Today in class, I thought we made a lot of progress for our midterm project. I liked that we were given some time in class to work on our projects, because it can be very difficult to meet outside of class to work on projects sometimes. I feel like my partner and I got a lot done for our project, though there is still a long way to go!

Mirror, Mirror- 10/7/08

I thought that the mirror activity we did on Tuesday was very interesting. I think it is an activity that students would really enjoy. It was fun, but also educational. Students would learn to write by looking in a mirror. The task was actually more difficult than I expected it to be. This activity is designed to help students think about how they approach a task and the strategies that they would use to solve the "problem".

Web Seminar make-up activity

I thought that this web seminar was very interesting. I have always been fascinated with astronomy, so it was wonderful having the opportunity to learn a little more about the subject! One thing that I learned from this seminar is that approximately 13.5 billion years ago the milky way galaxy was actually a nebula! I also learned about how stars are classified by using a spectra, which provides information on temperature, composition, brightness, and in some cases, distance. Another thing that I found interesting was the differences between hot and cool stars. An O star is considered to be a very hot star at 20 degrees K. An M star is considered a cool star, coming in at around 3000 degrees K. Our sun is a G5 star, which is close to 6000 degrees K. I also found it interesting that cool stars actually have molecules surrounding their atmosphere; while hot stars only have elements.

Thursday 10-2, Mystery Box

I really enjoyed the mystery box activity that we did in class on Thursday. I thought that it was fun to hypothesize about what was in each of the 4 mystery boxes. I was very shocked to find that each box contained basically the same thing, only in different shapes. I had suspected that in a couple of the boxes there were little toy cars. I also like that each of the members in my group was able to write down her ideas about what was in each box. I think that this would be a great activity to do with children. I believe that this activity would be very fun for students, as well as educational.

Tuesday 9-30, module

I think that the module that we did instead of class on Tuesday was beneficial. It allowed me to go back through the reading material and review what I had already read. I feel that this activity gave me the chance to take a deeper look at the information in chapters 3 and 4.

Learning Progressions

Since I was unable to view the live web seminar, I have decided to do my blog on the reading for last week. One of the things that I learned about in chapter 4 of ready, set, science! was the benefits of learning progressions. Some benefits are that they require serious thinking about underlying concepts, they prompt educators to think about how topics are presented at each grade level, they can draw on research about children's learning in determining scope and sequence, they incorporate all four strands of scientific proficience, they engage students with meaningful questions, they suggest the most appropriate ages for introduction of core concepts, and they can suggest the most important tools and practices to assess understanding.

Acid Test

I thought that our lab today was very interesting. In my groups acid tests, we found that vinegar and lime juice had the biggest affect on baking soda. There was a lot of fizz (a full reaction) when combining vinegar and baking soda, as well as lime juice and baking soda. I was a little surprised that both pink and white grapefruit and orange juice did not have a bigger reaction to baking soda. I thought that those juices would be much more acidic than they were. The reaction that we got for these juices was about 1/4. My group also found that the actual pieces of fruit did not have a very great reaction to the baking soda. All of our results came in at under 1/4.

The Safety Game

I really enjoyed learning how to play the safety game in class yesterday! I think that this game would be very beneficial to students when learning how to be safe in the science classroom. However, besides helping the students learn about safety, they will also be able to have fun! I think that games and other such fun activities are a good way to get students to really pay attention; they will be learning without even knowing it!

Teaching science

I thought it was interesting to learn about the reasons to teach science well, as well as the importance of teaching science well. I really believe the fact that in having scientific knowledge we can become participants rather than merely observers. I also agree with the fact that science can improve the quality of life on a global scale. Science can really help people understand the issues, environmental and otherwise, that may be occuring throughout the world. I am excited to learn more about science and how to teach science to my future students.

Temperature Probe Response Time Activity

The temperature probe activity that my group did on Tuesday did not go so well. We had a number of technical difficulties while trying to complete this activity. We had the most trouble trying to set up the LabQuest to take our measurements. Though we didn't have much success, it sounded like all of the other groups were able to gather all of their data. From the numbers shared in class, it seems that there were a variety of response times when moving the probe from the cold water to the warm water. I don't think that anyone's measurements were the same.