Making the Solar System

For my lesson I focused on the planets in the solar system and how they move around the sun. We created a model of the solar system, and then used that model to see how the earth rotates on an axis while it revolves around the sun.
Having them make the model of the solar system seemed particularly effective, because it gave them a visual of the information that we were discussing in class. I also feel that it was useful to have them act out the rotation of the planets, because that gave them two different ways to think about the information. Labeling the model of the solar system also helped reinforce the names of the planets as well. There favorite was Pluto. I explained to them that Pluto was no longer considered a regular planet, because it was too small, and they felt sad for it. That made me laugh.
This lesson went very well, and there is not much that I would change in the future. One thing that I would like to change would be to have them make more then one model of the solar system. I would split them up in groups instead of having them all work on one model together. With my small class that would not be as possible, but with a bigger class I think that would be more effective. I Would also plan to spread this lesson out over a couple of days, because I did not think about the fact that I was going to have to wait for the planets to dry. We had to finish putting the solar system together the next day, so we finished the lesson then.

Natural Disasters

It seems that more and more often we turn on the news and hear about some natural disaster that is affecting people around the world. I think that it is important that we take the time to inform our students about these, so that they can become more scientifically literate and compassionate individuals. I teach Kindergarten, so I would really have to be careful about how I go about informing them about the natural disasters, because I do not want to frighten them. When the earthquake hit in Haiti I talked to my students about it. I shared with them that my cousin was there when it happened and that she was helping the children there. They were a little worried, and they had some questions about what an earthquake was, so I did my best to help them understand the basic concepts. They decided that they wanted to collect items to send to my cousin in Haiti, so that she could give things to the children in the orphanage. I was very proud that they wanted to do that and my cousin was also very grateful. That showed me that they were thinking about what other people needed more than what they needed. AS I said earlier I think that it is important that my students are informed about these natural disasters, but I would be careful about the amount information that I share with them due to there young age.

Ask a Scientist Website

The question that I posed on the Ask a Scientist website was,is there any type of diet that would effect how quickly the ATP is drained from our cells, and would that have any benefits on our health? I asked the same question in our discussion for that week and I found that my colleagues gave me just as good of answers as I received from the website. I was pretty much given the same answers by both. I was provided with a link to a couple of good articles on the subject which I found to be very useful. I was able to read those articles and deepen my understanding of how ATP works in our body, and how nutrition can affect ATP. At this point in time I would not use the Ask a Scientist website with my students, because I teach Kindergarten. The only way that I could use it was if we came up with a question together and I posted it. When we got our answer I could then read to them the response. The only problem with that would be that the questions that we would come up with I could probably find the answers very easily myself. I would mainly use it as a way to show my students that there is a way that you can connect with scientists out there in the world. That might be useful for them.

References

Ask a Scientist
http://www.askascientist.org/

Course Project Tools

I liked looking at all of the different presentation tools. I thought that the Animoto tool would be good if you were trying to upload video in your presentation. It seems very user friendly and they give you step by step instruction on what you are supposed to do. I liked that. PreZentit was another one that I checked out. They also gave you step by step instructions and seemed rather user friendly. I liked that you could work with a team on it and not have to actually be on the same computer. I think that is a good feature. Those were the main ones that I checked out, but I look forward to reading my colleagues thoughts on what they looked at.

Heat as Energy

I know that a good insulator is something that helps trap heat. I always wondered what characteristics an object must possess in order to be a good insulator. I was glad that I could complete this experiment, because I was hoping that I would be able to figure out an answer to that question. I tested the temperature of the water before I started and it started out at 110.4ºF. I used similar sized mugs and filled them up with the same amount of water, so I could eliminate any possible variables. The four items that I chose to use as insulators were, aluminum foil, plastic wrap, a piece of paper, and a cotton cloth napkin. When I placed the materials over the mugs I made sure to put the rubber bands tightly around them, so that the heat would have a harder time escaping out of the sides. Going into the experiment I definitely expected that the aluminum foil would be the best insulator. I am not sure why I thought that, but that was my first instinct. First I took the temperature of the water in the mug that was covered with the paper. The temperature was 95.3ºF. The second mug that I tested was the one covered with aluminum foil. The temperature was 100.3ºF. Next was the mug covered with the cloth napkin. The temperature was 98.5ºF. Lastly I tested the mug with the plastic wrap. The temperature was 98.2ºF. I was not surprised by some of the results that I found after completing this experiment. I expected that the aluminum foil would be the best insulator and it was. However, I did not expect the paper to be the poorest insulator. I thought that it would be the plastic wrap, because it is so thin, but there was not much difference between that and the cloth napkin.
If I were to do this experiment again I would try to use different materials. I wold be interested to use styrofoam, newspaper, and jean material. I think that the styrofoam would be the best insukator, because it has smaller spaces of air molecules. The heat would have a harder time getting through, so the liquid would stay hotter.

Engaging in Guided Inquiry

I chose to answer the question about marbles momentum changing based on surface. I figured that this would be a good way for my 1st/2nd graders to get introduced to guided-inquiry. I expected to find that the marbles would have more momentum on the smoother surfaces, and that is exactly what I found. The more friction the marble encountered the less momentum it had. I think that this experiment would greatly benefit my students. They are young, so they have very little experience with guided-inquiry, because they are not quite to the place where they can receive a question from me and then design and experiment to answer that question (Banchi & Bell, 2008). This would be a nice question to ease them into that process. They would not have to build anything complicated. All they would need to do would be to come up with different surfaces to roll the marble on. There are not that many options for what they could do, and I think that would be helpful to them, because they would not feel so overwhelmed. They might struggle a bit at first, but once they get started I think that they would do great. I feel that I could have them create their own experiment to answer this question. The main thing that I would want them to learn is that they can come up with an experiment on their own.

References
Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The many levels of inquiry. Science & Children, 46(2), 26–29.

Reflection on Weather Lesson

Lesson Reflection
The lesson that I decided to create focused on one main question, “ Does the weather change on a daily basis?” In order to answer that question we will conduct an experiment. For four days we will take the temperature in the morning and in the afternoon. After we have done that we will discuss our findings read a chapter in our science book that will give us more information on that topic. We will end the lesson with a worksheet to assess how much the students understand from the lesson.
I was not able to teach this lesson to my students this week, because we were on Spring Break. I decided to teach it to my nieces and nephews this week and when I go back to school next week I will teach it to my students. I think that will be a benefit for my students, because I did see some things in my lesson that I would like to change and my nieces and nephews get the benefit of a free science lesson.
I started the lesson out with the question that I mentioned earlier. I used that question as a 'hook' to get them thinking about what we would be learning in the lesson. That seemed to work well, because they were curious and interested to find out what the temperature would be. It was fun to see them so interested in the lesson. I hope that my class will react the same way.
I had them form a hypothesis and they all thought the same thing. They all agreed that the weather would be cooler in the morning and warmer in the afternoon, so they were not surprised by the results at all. The lesson was more confirmation inquiry, because they basically already knew the results before we completed the experiment (Banchi & Bell, 2008) I think that when I teach this lessons in my classroom all of my students will not agree on the same hypothesis. I think that it will be more of a structured inquiry lesson (Banchi & Bell, 2008). I actually would like it if they have different answers to the question, because I feel that they will be more interested with this particular experiment if they have different thoughts on what the results will be. Overall I feel that the lesson accomplished what I wanted it to.
I taught this lesson with children who were not all in the same grade, so I received various types of answers. For example my nephew who is in 5th grade gave me a more in depth answer than my niece in 2nd grade. One of the questions on the worksheet has 3 pictures with the time of day and the temperature during that time. Then the students are asked to write about how the temperature changed in the pictures. My nephew in 5th grade answered by saying exactly how much each temperature changed in each picture, but my niece in 2nd grade just answered that it became warmer throughout the day. I would expect to see more answers like my nieces when I have my students complete this worksheet, because that is more of their level. By looking at the worksheets that my nieces and nephews completed I could see that they all understood the lesson and that they had proven that their original hypothesis was correct.
I feel that my nieces and nephews were positively impacted by this lesson. They understood the concepts that I was trying to teach them, which is shown by the assessment that I gave them. I feel that, because this lesson is inquiry based it will also help them become more scientifically literate individuals.
I will make a few changes to my lesson when I implement this in my classroom. I will make sure that I take the temperature at the same time each morning and each afternoon. I will also make sure that we take the temperature at the same location each day . I would like to also make sure that the location that we choose to take the temperature is in the shade, so the sun does not shine on the thermometer and skew the results. Overall I think that this lesson went very well and I think that my students will really enjoy it when they get a chance to do it.
References
Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The many levels of inquiry. Science and Children, 46(2), 26–29.

Polar Ice Caps

What would happen if the polar ice caps melted?

My first thought when thinking about this question was that if the polar ice caps melted then that would create flooding. After completing the experiment I changed my mind on the subject. I saw that the water did not overflow from the bowl. The water just dispersed. I feel that the same thing will happen if the polar ice caps melted. I do not think that it will cause flooding like so many people believe.

I think that this is a good experiment to get the children thinking about this topic. This is something that may very well effect them in the future and I think that is is good for us to introduce these kinds of things to the children. It is also a good way to help the children work on making hypotheses. It may also show them that what they expect to happen in an experiment may not be the results that they get. They need to learn that what they expect to see and what actually happens may be two different things.

One question that I do have is how accurate are the results that we get from this experiment compared to the larger scale of the polar ice caps?

STEM Lesson PLan

This week we were asked to create a lesson plan that focused on STEM strategies for diverse learners. I teach lower elementary and we have been learning about changes of the earth through time. Within that unit the last few weeks we have been focusing on Dinosaurs and their fossils. For this lesson plan I decided to take a deeper look at one of the lessons that I taught this past week in my classroom. The students learned how we can tell what kind of food a dinosaur most likely ate based on what the fossils of of their teeth looked like. They did an experiment to test out their theories. They had a lot of fun with it.

After reading through the resources this week I had a chance to see some of the changes that I would make in that lesson that I taught. I made those changes in the lesson plan that I submitted. Reading about the 5 E's Strategy was helpful when I was thinking of ways that I could improve the lesson. For Example, I decided to add more use of technology into my lesson. I realized that it would be a good idea to have the students start out on the computers looking through some websites that I would have preselected for them. They would look up information and pictures about dinosaurs and there fossils.

Generally I do not write lesson plans in this much detail, so I found it very helpful to go in depth with this one. It helped me think more deeply about every aspect of the lesson. I could see where things needed to be changed and what worked well. It helps to take a step back and look at it from a different angle. That is what this assignment helped me do.

I believe that this lesson went well when I taught it, so I do not anticipate many practical or logistical problems. I feel like I worked any of those out when I taught the lesson the first time. I just have to make sure that the students are careful when they are working on the experiment, so they do not hurt themselves.

References

Hammerman, E. L. (2006). Becoming a better science teacher: 8 steps to high quality instruction and student achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Adventure's in Science

Hello Everybody!
I have never created a blog before, so I am a newbie at this. I look forward to sharing my thoughts and ideas about Science with you all. I also look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas as well!