Earthquakes!

This was the most difficult lesson implementation thus far of my degree journey.  It was extremely challenging for me to find students for my summer class.  I ended up with a class of my two boys, my two nieces, and two of my boy’s friends, and two of their sisters.  The four girls were wonderful, but the boys tried not to be goofy, but for the most part they were.  They all know I am a teacher, but I think it was bizarre for them to see me in a teacher role. 

I placed the students into four groups of two and each group were given two pieces of tow by four wood, clay, toothpicks, and Monopoly houses to create a fault line and a city.  They placed the tow by fours on a flat surface and covered them with clay to appear as one piece.  Then they added a road and house to create a city.  I was surprised how much these middle school students were engaged in the creation of their fault line city.  Once the groups were finished with their models, they need to make a prediction on how the land would look after the plated moved.  Then they were instructed to place one board in each hand and slide their boards in the directions specified on their lab sheet for each fault, resetting the crust after each demonstration.  One group of students observed that most of the damage occurs along the fault line. Eureka!

Natural Disasters

            I have been working at Lancaster Elementary School for the last five years.  This school is located less than ten miles west of downtown Orlando, Florida.  The school opened in 1964 and much of the original buildings are still in use today.  This once middle-class area is now predominantly lower socio-economic households.  It is not uncommon for my students to reside in rented hotels or apartments with extended families living together in one or two bedrooms.  Eighty-six percent of Lancaster’s population is on free and reduced lunch.  Many of my students feel that they are entitled to community or governmental assists.  It is not unusual for my students’ families to demand free eye glasses, dental work, holiday meals, Christmas trees, and breakfast for their children.  I have had many parents that argue, yell, and even curse at me if they are not selected as one of the families who are provided assists.

Lancaster feels that it is extremely important to education our students on the value of community involvement.  The staff has developed partnerships with many local organizations to instill the power of service learning to our students.  The purpose of this Caring Community is to build character by identifying and serving the needs of others (Lancaster, 2011).  For example, students can write letters to soldiers, decorate bags for pharmacies, host a senior breakfast, or collect dog and cat food for the local animal shelter.  My students and I have participated in these service-learning partnerships for the five years that I have been teaching at Lancaster, but I never thought about adding a science or environmental component.

The students at Lancaster would benefit from a partnership with the American Red Cross.  Living in Florida many of my students understand how devastating a hurricane disaster can be on the community.  I will have a Red Cross volunteer discuss ways that students can help this organization.  I would want the Red Cross to discuss their youth volunteer program with my students. The Red Cross Teen Corps is a youth group that performs a wide variety of community service projects throughout the Orange county area.  Volunteers can be trained as disaster responders, which can assist in the aftermath of a disaster (Mid Florida Red Cross, 2011).  Adding the Red Cross as part of our Caring Community will continue to instill the character education and values that we want our students to possess.

References:

Lancaster Elementary School. (2011). Lancaster’s Caring Community. Retrieved July 15, 2011,  from https://www.ocps.net/lc/southeast/eln/schoolinfo/Pages/Lancaster'sCaringCommunity.aspx

Mid Florida Red Cross. (2011). Teen Corp. Retrieved July 14, 2011 from http://www.midfloridaredcross.org/general_calltoaction.asp?CTA=2&SN=5929&OP=5937&IDCapitulo=9B23PSXU4I

Implementing the Backward Design Process

Categorizing biotic and abiotic objects

Outside investigation

Presentations



Ask a Scientist!

I have not received an ask to my cell question as of today.  When I receive an answer I will update my blog.  Thank you!

Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

When I was in fifth grader, I cannot remember my teacher doing a song and dance show to keep my attention.  Now teachers are encouraged to use a wide variety of multimedia tools.  As a teacher, I incorporate power point in my classroom through review, jeopardy games, and student projects.  I do not like change, but if I am forced to then I want to go “big”.  I reviewed two presentational tools that I could use to complete my course project.  The two tools are 280 Slides and Prezi.

280 Slides essentially is an online version of power point.  Pictures, You Tube videos, and clip art can be easily added to the presentation.  There are tutorials that guide the user to completely a successful presentation.  I believe that 280 Slides is a great next step if someone is uncomfortable with change, but it is too close to power point for me.

The next presentational tool that I explored is Prezi.  I have attended several workshops where Prezi was used.  It is extremely important in my county that all the students understand the standard and direction of each lesson.  My principal will walk into my room and ask students to identify the objective of the lesson.  I think being able to zoom out and show the students the “big picture” will assist students in understanding the objective and the direction the lesson.  Students can also use Prezi as a study guide because they can access it from home. I think that my students will enjoy Prezi as a new multimedia tool for me.

21st-Century Topics and Tools

The content area in which I conducted my research on is the flow of electricity through a circuit. I enjoy teaching this unit because it is one of the few times I have my students conduct an open inquiry activity. The open inquiry activity has the students discover the elements of a working circuit. I would still have my students complete the inquiry activity first because it will set the stage to teach them the science behind their circuits.

The websites that I believe are powerful learning tools are: 

1.      NASA: The students can use this website as a reference page.  This one page website defines parallel and series circuits.  http://scifiles.larc.nasa.gov/text/kids/Problem_Board/problems/electricity/circuits2.html

2.      Woodland Junior School:  This is an incredible website.  I cannot wait to use it with my students.  This website provides about fourteen different games to explore.  My favorite interactive game is called, Silicon Spies.  This is a comic like story of an evil doctor.  Dr Volt has an evil plan of destroying all the power in Silicon City.  The city sends a group of spies to foil his plans.  The student becomes one of the spies. 

http://www.learningcircuits.co.uk/

These two websites will prepare my students to be 21st-century scientifically literate citizens by providing them the knowledge and practice in understanding the basic of circuits. The only challenge that I can see is providing my students an opportunity to practice building circuits independently or in partners because of the lack of computers available.

The Heat Is On!

In my inquiry, I selected a fifteen centimeter piece of square craft felt, a fifteen centimeter piece of a cotton shirt, a fifteen centimeter piece of aluminum foil, and a fifteen centimeter piece cut from a quart-sized plastic bag as my manipulated variables. I poured eight ounces (240 mL) of boiling water into five identical ceramic mugs. The fifth mug remained uncovered as a control. I then covered each mug with one of the selected materials and secured the materials with rubber bands. After thirty minutes, I uncovered each mug and measured its temperature. I recorded my results on a chart and repeated the experiment two additional times to ensure my results were accurate and reliable. As I analyzed my materials to my hypothesis, I was surprised by what my results revealed. On average, all of the water temperatures were reduced by forty-eight to sixty-nine percent. The aluminum foil that I believed would be the best insulator did not provide the best insulation (see appendix). The results of this experiment were extremely unexpected. The plastic bag conserved heat the most efficiently. This surprised me because I would never think to cover a hot dish with a plastic bag or plastic wrap. I never imagined that it would be a practical insulator. The plastic bag’s water temperature was six degrees higher than the aluminum foil. The unanticipated outcome provides insight regarding heat transfer and insulators.

The insight that I have gained from conducting this lesson is that less dense materials are better insulators (Kurtus, 2006). This explains my results; the plastic bag was definitely the least dense material that I chose. Kurtus justifies this reasoning by explaining that the denser the material, the closer its atoms are together. The closer the atoms are together, the faster the transfer of energy takes place (2006).

When I conduct this inquiry with my students, I will ask them to bring in items from their house. I will give them examples such as cotton cloth, potholders, tissue paper, and towels. I will also provide materials from my classroom such as aluminum foil, napkins, paper plates, books, and plastic bags. I will give the students opportunity to choose from a variety of hot and cold liquids to test. I will provide tea, coffee, hot chocolate, cold soda, cold juice, hot and ice water. I will make this inquiry more relevant to the students’by showing them different travel mugs and discussing the propose and what they are made of.

Reference

Kurtus, R. (2006). Thermal insulation Prevents Heat From escaping. Author. Retrieved January

            26, 2011, from http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/thermal_insulation.htm

Appendix

Type of Material	Trial 1	Trial 2	Trial 3	Average
Felt	32°C	35°C	33°C	33°C
Cotton T-Shirt	39°C	40°C	41°C	40°C
Aluminum Foil	47°C	46°C	46°C	46°C
Plastic Sandwich bag	52°C	52°C	53°C	52°C
Uncovered (Control)	31°C	31°C	31°C	31°C