Keeping up with global competition

There are so many times you hear people say that American children are behind countries such as China in Math and Sciences. What does this statement really mean to us, to Americans? In the article, "What's Our Sputnik? by Thomas L. Friedman he suggests America needs an event like the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 is what motivated the Americans to enhance their education in science.



Since 1957 no other similar event has happened. We lost our momentum and now we need something new to spark that interest. What could that event be? Honestly, I don't know. I would hope we would not need a major even like Sputnik to realize that we are behind in education and need to really step it up. We all make comments about it as it is, so what's stopping our school systems from actually doing something about it?



All I hear are excuses. Administrations are a lot alike corporations at times, working like a business and only thinking about money. If they were only thinking about the students and education they would try and see how to make things work. They would let the teachers make committees and get together to see if they can come up with solutions. When you have administrations who do not want to listen to new ideas especially when it has to do with introducing STEM education it proves they are ignoring the fact we need to improve our educational system. We will eventually be blindsided just like Sputnik and people will turn their heads and pretend they had no idea it was coming. In reality, it was a long time coming, no one cared to take a stand and really try for our students.

Natural Disasters

If you look in the newspaper or watch the news, it seems that natural disasters are always happening and being discussed. Hundreds and thousands of lives are directly or indirectly affected by these tragedies. Flooding, Snow/Ice storms, Hurricanes, Tornados, or even the most recent Tsunami in Japan has been the center of the news. I can't help but think that my students in particular do not fully understand the damage these disasters create because they do not understand the actual disaster.

When the tragic Tsunami hit Japan, I took that time to show them videos from the internet of the actual event occurring and the news reports as they happened. My students have never seen anything like it. It really generated questions and a great conversation and discussion of this particular event and other events.

I really think that students are not exposed to enough of the "real story" of natural disasters.  They really only see what the media puts together. I feel it is my job as a teacher to really teach them about natural disasters, teach them how to prepare and get through a natural disaster and I feel like it is important to find real life examples. Also, to show them real examples of the devastation that could happen.      

After showing them the devestions I do not want them to leave my classroom with hopelessness feelings. I want to show them what they can do to help. Whether it is donating clothing they do not wear anymore to creating food and money drives for donation. I really think getting students invovled is the best lesson because they may not have expereinced the natural disaster, but they can still be a part of it, and be a part of the recovery.

Presentation Methods

It’s been awhile since I have ventured out into the world of “presentation technology”.  I like many of you am sure you spent most of your educational career using PowerPoint or notes from apple. I recently entered into a graduate program. One of the requirements is to have a course project represented in a presentation.

I took some time to check out different presentation methods and I have viewed them.

Googledocs: I find it very easy to navigate. It works pretty much like PowerPoint. The great addition to googledocs is that you can load your presentation to your account and make it very excisable.

Zoho Show 2.0: Again this was easy to navigate. It works like PowerPoint as well, but has a great almost “hip” vibe to it. It’s free, you just have to sign up for a user name and that’s about it.

Voice Thread: This is a site that has ideas that I have never heard of. It was a bit hard to navigate the site, and I couldn’t really find any useful tutorials. The concept is great you can upload pictures and add voice recordings. I would definitely have my students use these in the classroom, but for my graduate project I think it lacks the ability to give the depth to my course project.

I really would like to explore these presentation tools further. For my graduate class I am going to choose googledocs. It is set up similar to PowerPoint which I am familiar with, but being able to load it for everyone to see very easily is very appealing.   

What is the effect of large objects colliding with smaller objects?

The guided inquiry question I chose to focus on was "What is the effect of large objects colliding with smaller objects?" The first thing I did after I chose the focus of my guided inquiry was search for supplies around my house. I found toy cars which were the obvious choice, however, they were the same size, regardless, I grabbed them. Then I started to think about other things I could use.  I also took a basketball and a softball. Some observations I made from those materials were not only that the basketball was bigger in size than the softball, but the softball was more dense than the basketball.

I was able to infer the densities of the basketball and softball by using water displacement to find the volume. I took a large plastic bucket and filled it half way with water from the hose. I took a black marker and marked the water level. Then I proceeded to put each object in and marked the level the water was at with a different color marker. I recorded my information on a basic data table. Then I was able to find the mass of the two objects by using a balance. I chose to find the density of each object because the size of the object is just one physical property of that particular object.

            After the densities were recorded I proceeded to work on my inquiry question. I started with the cars and had them collide with each other. I took the cars on the floor and held one in each hand. I stretched my arms as far apart as I could and gave them a push together. I tried to keep the speed consistent with each car. I tried this 3 times. When the cars hit, they would make contact and then move in opposite directions.  They would both move in opposite directions the same distance apart from the initial contact.

Next, I took the basketball and the softball and had them in each hand on the ground. I stretched my arms as far apart as I could and pushed them together, just as I had did with the cars. I observed when the basketball and softball collided, the basketball when in the opposite direction further than the softball. I inferred this happened because it demonstrated Newton's second law. Newton's second law of motion states, " The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to the mass of the object" (Enger, Fredrick & Tillery, 2008 p.41). With information I gathered earlier, I know the softball has more mass than the basketball. That is why the objects acted in the way they did.

            Engaging in the guided inquiry helped me further understand what effect larger objects have on smaller objects when colliding. It is generally difficult for me to understand a concept mentally with just words. Not only did seeing the results happen right in front of me help, the act of  physically doing it made it easier for me to remember what happened. It became an individual experience for me and now I could relate that experience to the resources.

            Even with the success I had with guided inquiry, there were some challenges. It was a bit difficult for me to push the trucks and balls towards each other with the same force. Another difficulty I had was using the word "larger" in the inquiry question. What did that really mean? Was the object to be bigger in volume? Was the object to be larger in mass or density? These were some things I had to consider while conducting this experiment.

Mass and Weight Lab

My lab consisted of the students inquiring the difference between mass and weight. The materials were simple: balance, water bottle, rubber band, meter stick, marbles, and scissors. The students were provided with a question and procedure; yet, the students were required to make inferences from the information they collected. This coincides with Heather Banchi and Randy Bell's 2008 article, "The Many Levels of Inquiry". This type of inquiry is important because it allows students to eventually develop their own abilities and conduct open ended inquiry. This is mostly seen in elementary schools, but for my seventh graders, this is on target for their ability level (Banchi, H., Bell, R., 2008). 

 It is still the beginning of the year and I want to guide the students through the levels of inquiry because up until they have me for science, they are not really exposed to any type of inquiry. I am working from the bottom up. By June, my goal is to have the students working at an open inquiry level. At this level, the students will investigate questions they formulated on their own, design their own experiment and producers and are able to communicate their inferences (Banchi, H., Bell, R., 2008). 

The procedure to the lab was as follows:

1. Cut the rubber band. Attach one end to the bottle.
2. Measure the mass of the bottle and attached rubber band in grams and record.
3. Lift the bottle using the rubber band. Measure the length of the rubber band in centimeters and record.
4. Place three marbles in the bottle. Measure the mass of the bottle with the three marbles in it and record. Lift the bottle and measure the length of the rubber band. Record.
5. Add three more marbles and repeat step 4.
6. Add three more marbles and repeat step 4.

During the mass and weight lab, the students were fully engaged. Each student took on a job in their group and worked diligently. I walked around to each group and took the time to speak with them. I would ask them scaffolding questions that related to the analysis questions in the lab. I would ask them to describe what they observed and why it was happening. From the answers the students gave, they were on track. I was very pleased with the work the students accomplished and for homework they had to finish the analysis questions. I collected the labs the next day and to my surprise the results were not what I expected.  Out of the 135 students I have this year, about 10 of them earned an 84 on the lab and 3 earned a 100. The rest of the students failed.

At first I was upset because I thought I really failed. Then I remembered...In my graduate class we were asked to conduct an experiement on global warming. We were to put ice cubes in a cup with water and see what happens as the water melts. When I came back, the water was on the table so I assumed the water overflowed from the cup, however, this was wrong. I tried the lab again and had different results. The water did not overflow the second time.

I decided to re-do the lab the following day with the students as I had down with the global

I try to recall what could of happened durning the lab with the students, but I don't know if I will ever know. I think next year I am going to do the lab the same way. If they make a mistake it is not a big deal. As long as we learn and gather the information needed, it doesn't matter what happens and we can see what our mistakes were the second time.
  

Uing the 5 E's Strategy when implementing Science Lesson Plans

Recently I developed a lesson plan using the 5 E's strategy. I found it really helps to create a complete plan. The 5 E's include: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate (enhancinged.wgbh.org).  When teaching science, I have found that using inquiry is something that does work and it has the students discover a lot of the concepts on their own. I never used the 5 E's strategy per say, but I feel like I have done my lessons in the same sort of way. When taking the time to use the 5 E's strategy to create your plan it helps you direct the lesson in a certain direction.  It almost reminds me of the scientific method. Using this strategy has you engage the students, then they are able to explore further into the lesson. Then to explain and elaborate in the lesson enables the students to really further understand the concept they are learning. In the end, evaluating the students is critical because it is a way to be sure the students understood what you were teaching them. It also can show you if you have to review something further.  

References:

http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/research/eeeee.html

Hello All!!!

I am happy to say that blogging has already shown its advantages. For anyone interested I found a great website with a ton of experiments that may be possible for anyone to implement in their class. Even if you don't, they're certainly cool to look at! Enjoy!


http://www.freesciencelectures.com/