Ask a Scientist

Dear Colleagues,

Well I posted my question last week on ask a scientist, and it was prob. on of the most worthwhile things I have done in a while for one reason.  It forced me to find a question that I did not know the answer to in a field that I consider myself an expert in.  Through this experience, I was able to gain new knowledge and I began researching things inside the genetics field again and realized a lot has change since I got out of college.  I have yet to receive an answer, but i think this assignment gave me a new vigor for the process of keeping on top of the new advances in the scientific field in which I teach.

I think creating a blog with local scientist that mimics an ask the scientist like forum would be a great way to involve students with the local scientific community and pique their interests within the scientific research that is going on within their area.  Such a unique way to get both the buy in of the stakeholders within the community and the stakeholders within your classroom.  Buy in is key to any educational experience and can lead to students gaining more knowledge and being more successful in class. 

Presentation Tools

My goodness, I had no idea there were so many presentation tools available out on the web.  What I liked about all of them was their relative ease of use.  Most of them reminded me of a power point or photo story format, so these are very familiar to me.  I use them a lot already, so it feels like I am just expanding my knowledge.

At this point I think I am going to use Prezenit for a two fold reason.  One, I love the idea that individuals can access my presentation.  It to me seems like a great way to make presentations accessible to students who are absent or cannot be in class for specific purposes.  I also like the available pictures and the ability to upload pictures that you would like into your project.  The ease of use was exemplary because it not only was easy to use, but there were a lot of easy to read and use help sections. 

This evaluation was difficult for me, there are so many interesting and seemingly easy to use tools, but until you really get into the design and completion of you project will you really know how easy or difficult each program was.  I am excited to use and learn about these projects and I hope to eventually become an expert on a couple of these in order to increase my presentation skills within the classroom and add an ease of accessibility to my students who need the information at home. 

Tech resources

Share your topic and “most powerful” web addresses and hyperlink sites on your blog. This gives you and your colleagues an open resource of ideas to draw from on 21st-century topics and tools.

thinkcentral.com-our textbook site is one of the best things I have found
NASA.gov-perfect for looking at the universe and posting questions to astronauts

Explain how you expect these tools will help prepare your students to be 21st-century scientifically literate citizens.

These sites allow students to manipulate new science concepts because of the up to date technology they use to integrate new scientific discoveries into their learning.  They are also useful because many state are connected to these two sites, allowing the current NEST standards to be uploaded and part of their lessons

Describe at least one physical science activity you can plan around the use of one of these tools. Identify how this tool will help to engage students in the subject matter/topic of the activity.

I would like to look at the gravitational forces placed on objects on different places in space using the NASA website.  Students have a difficult time remembering the difference between weight and mass and the online sources they have regarding the gravitational pull of different planets on different bodies.  The website allows students to "travel" to the different planets which allows them to "see" what their weight would be on different bodies in the universe.

Share challenges you might face in integrating the use of this tool into your instruction.

The biggest challenge I for see is the ability to schedule time in our computer lab.  The issue is the fact that with online testing and teachers who need to be in the lab at certain times for state testing, it is very difficult for teachers to get into the lab.  Without this resource and the manipulation the resource makes available, it will be difficult to have our students actually see what is happening with their weight.

Week 4-Heat

What, specifically, would you like students to learn from this experiment? Did you achieve this goal when you engaged in the experiment?

I would like students to learn about insulation and more importantly how that insulation can help keep a body warm in cold weather situations.  It is important for the student to understand that every piece of science can solve practical problems.  It is important for students to realize this.

I accomplished this because I looked at it from a football fan stand point.  My parents and many of their closest friends are Buffalo Bills season ticket holders.  It is important for them to be able to keep themselves warm for extended periods of time because of the cold temperatures that plague many of the home games.  Therefore, I would like my students to realize that there are easy ways to test specific things so that they give you the most practical use.  Therefore, science can solve the simplest of problems that you or society may have.

Physical Guided Inquiry-week 2

During my experiment I looked at how friction would stop or hinder the momentum of a marble.  My results were that it rolled furthest on linoleum and concrete, and less far on carpeting and grass.  I expected the grass to have the most friction, but because it was just cut, it actually provided less friction than I originally expected

The experiment went pretty well.  I think that it was very beneficial that I brought home the walking meter stick for measurements so that they were as accurate as possible.  I would have really liked to use some sort of delivery device so that I could guarantee the velocity of the marble at the start of the experiment.  Instead i had to rely on my ability to roll it the same exact way.  I believe that this could have impacted my experiment.

I would use a ramp to start the marble next time so that it would have the same velocity and momentum for each experiment and trial.  Making sure to control all variables except the independent variable is important for not only reproducibility, but for accurate initial results as well

I think I would use toy cars instead of marbles and have the students determine how momentum would be impacted by different road surfaces. I would then have them right a proposal to the city council to defend their results for repaving the roads with a different surface than what is currently used. 

I would like students to really understand that everything will remain in motion unless friction is present.  I also think it is important for the students to realize that different surfaces will have different impacts on motion.  For the most part I achieved my goal in this experiment, so therefore with a few modification I would be able to do this with my students and have them understand the concepts that I believe this lab best represents.

Sharing student work

Sorry guys-with the rules that my district has about sharing student work and the fact that I need my job (LOL) I will NOT be sharing the work of my students-I also do not feel comfortable getting permission from a child and not a parent for posting their work online-if I had parent permission I may feel a bit better about the situation.  I will tell you that the students really gained knowledge from the inquiry because they experienced science in a way that made it easy to understand, and easy to do because it was guided.  They all got to the answer I wanted them to get to, and did it without becoming frustrated in the process because it was easy for them to follow and understand the directions.  The fact that I ran through the first example with them was also very helpful.  It is through guided inquiry that we can expose students to what real inquiry should look like, and therefore give them a basis for inquiry for when they are doing experiments on their own.

This weeks lesson

Ok so here it is.  I respect that the 5E’s are one of the best ways to plan a lesson, but every school in every district does this differently.  Therefore fitting my lesson that I use for my district into this format was stressful.  It made me feel like I had to clue as to what I was doing or typing.  I know that most of you reading this are saying that it is just restructuring and reorganizing the information, but let’s face it, I know how to lesson plan, I have been doing it forever, and when you change my current training on that it makes me feel like I have no idea what is going on!

On the lesson front, I have already implemented the lesson I presented many times and the students enjoy creating their own talking doll.  The worst issue I have with this lesson is because of testing being done on the computers throughout the district, it is hard to find consecutive days to allow the students to get into the media center and work on their projects.  This is the most frustrating part of the whole thing, finding the time to get into the places we have to help out students because they are booked up by various other test and so forth.  I hope that eventually we will find the funds to create another computer lab and allow all teachers to be able to get into the labs for their testing and free up the media center for research and not testing.