Modeling Earth Science instructional plan

Reflections:
How did the use of a model work for you and your students?

I was not completely sure how to make use of a model in discussing the biomes of the earth. The students will themselves be creating a diagram after they learn about all the biomes. They will chose an animal and create it's living environment. So, I was thinking of how to make use of a model that would display their knowledge of where the various biomes are and why they are there. I decided to use that as an interactive thing so that I would describe a biome and then ask them to predict where they believed it would be based off of what they know about the relationship that the sun has on weather and seasons. Later, I made them create a model of the types of trees one would find in each of the taiga and temperate deciduous forests and explain in writing why it is that they would be found there.





Share the triumphs and challenges of using models in an effort to support student understanding of complex science concepts.

Well, I think that these activities helped me to be able to see where each student's misconceptions were. Since the students went outside for a walk to look at examples of how plants adapt to the winter season in western PA, that became a part of their answers for the model. In some cases, they became the answer for BOTH biome choices though and although I am fond of oak trees, I am pretty sure that they would not do well in the taiga biome regions. So, what I believe I would do is just like after asking students to predict where they biomes are, I showed them the real places, I would also do the same thing with the trees. I can show them examples of particular plants and then explain to them why those plants can or can not live in various biomes.

I would love to make this a game sort of like memory. I could make cards that have the pictures of various trees/plants and then have listed information on the card about the biome that it lives in and why it needs to be there. Students could either match up the same picture, or be able to take up pairs according to their biome, or a partnership between a plant and an organim in that biome or something like that! Through this sort of game the facts could be reinforced while the students are also having fun.

Creating Compassionate Students

Natural disasters happen regularly, yet how often do we really pay attention to what is going on? I know that for me, most of the time it takes something happening within my backyard, or a very big event that everyone surrounding me will be talking about.

I believe that we can create more compassionate students in class by tying significant natural disasters into our science study in related events. If I am teaching on weather instruments and scientist, I would probably include some information on the hurricane that went through Galveston, Tx in 1900 and discuss how important studying the weather is because the people there did not believe that anything was going to happen to them.

I believe that a good incentive for my students would be to allow them to bring in recent events news clippings on natural disasters. They get extra credit, and even a chance to discuss it in class (which has the added incentive of being a small break from the regular activities), and then I can use those readings as a way to connect the science concepts to reality. If students are able to relate what we learn in class or in homework back to the events we read about, talk about, and post on the classroom wall, then they can get extra credit for either presenting that to the class orally or visually along side the news clippings. Students will also get credit for presenting information on organizations that they have found which help during these events. I would set an example by including the major ones in any unit that I do on a given natural disaster. In this way, I believe that students can become more aware of their surroundings, what the information they receive means, and how to respond to this information with compassion and understanding.

Ecological Exploration with a Touch of Sense

Since I do not have my own class, I was using the students from my sister’s third and fourth grade class for my lesson. These students have a forty-five minute block for science time. Ironically, that block also includes packing up for the end of the day, so my time with them was brief.
I wanted the students to understand ahead of time what the goals were so, although I planned on discussing the standards, instead I briefed the students on the objectives. I explained that since they were learning about their senses, and I needed to do a lesson on ecology, that we were going to observe nature because no matter what is being studied in science, a scientist relies on their senses to help them in their work. Yet, I also pointed out that for this lesson no one is allowed to use their sense of taste since I did not want anyone to become sick. I quickly handed out blank journal books and instructed students to label it with their name and a nature book title. I told them that our time would be brief and so they should use it wisely and then I took them outside with field study books to sit on benches and identify the trees.
Students were so excited about finding things. They noticed any number of organisms surrounding them including miniscule mushrooms.

At first, some students were searching for birds. I told them to first focus on the trees surrounding them. It took them a while to adjust their focus since their hopes were on birds but about half way through the lesson, some hawks started circling above us. They were gorgeous! The students loved to watch! Not much later a murder of black birds showed up and students drew them. In between that time, some students spotted a snake. It was about 3 feet long! We identified it as a garter snake and discussed why students do not need to be concerned about them living on the school grounds.

About half way through, students were looking more at the bark of trees and the things growing on them.



They looked at small seeds and nuts on the ground.
They started wandering further out to study more trees. Many students were numbering each organism they identified and using pencil rubbings to record leaf patterns.
Students met the goals with flying colors. Although I would have loved for us to be able to create their own presentation about what they saw, we never would have had enough time for it. Still, they did observe well for the time that they had. And, although I would have loved for the students to be able to collect more information, it is really impossible to research what all the various plant types are with third and fourth graders in a forty some minute block.

The lesson was successful because the students were intent and responsible in their research and collection of information. They loved going out and searching around them. It was like a scavenger hunt for them. They loved thinking about what plants were and collecting leaves or seeds. It was good for the students to practice looking in books to identify trees, but it was a bit awkward since it is a new procedure for them. The next time I would prepare them ahead of time by showing them how to use a field book appropriately. I believe that we could make a better use of time for a number of students that way.
The backward process worked well. I have used that process now for many years. It is what I was taught by my professors during college. I appreciate how a teacher does not lose sight of the final goal when this is used.

In closing, students discussed connections between what they saw, and how those organisms relate to each other to create our school environment. Students did very well in recognizing relationships and causal effects.

Web Tool Examination Analysis:

Considering the following web tool: PreZENt (http://prezentit.com/)
Ease of use: It is so similar to Power Point that I have no trouble moving around to find the options that I need.
Special features: The way that pictures are used makes it easy to create your own designs to use.
Reliability: I wouldn’t know. It seems reliable enough though I have not been using it long. One needs the use of the internet for creating though supposedly one does not need it later on when presenting.
Learning curve/availability of training materials: I did not see any tutorials, which means if I am missing something SUPER COOL that I could do, then it is lost on me for quite a while. I found that the text box would not work at the right level with the text. The first line would not go away even though none of the words were on it after I got done typing. All the words were thus hidden in the text box. I resized it. Then, I just moved the textbox up to align it where I had wanted before the first line incident only to notice that after writing the text and ceasing to edit, the box outline still shows.
Equipment/technical requirements: What is common internet usage is what is required.
Potential for collaboration and file sharing: Yes, absolutely! In fact, collaboraters can be working on it at the same time from different places, the presentation can be kept private or made public, and one gets one’s own web address to be capable of editing manually.
Cost of use: None? I signed up and got access without paying a thing. Perhaps I will get hit with a fee after a create something and want to use it? I do not know. So far nothing has indicated that I owe anything.
Accessibility from home, school, or classroom: It is accessible from anywhere that there is internet until it is saved on someone’s computer, it seems.
Multi-media capabilities (such as animation, sound, video elements) I did not see sound elements, animation, or video options.
Engagement/motivational factors: Good question! The pictures are gorgeous! One can layer information, pictures, and shadow boxes to make a jaw dropping display which has great depth. These images can come and go in the slide via a number of silly, or not so silly, options just like Power Point. However, a lack of animation and sound would be a slight against it unless I am just not finding it yet.

Considering the following tool: Vuvox (http://www.vuvox.com/)
Ease of use: Looks easy enough so far.
Special features: The slide format makes the presentation flow. It also can create movement and timing variances. At some points the presentation can go on autopilot and go slow or fast based on the designer. At other times the viewer can deside to take over and slow it down if something was missed or fast forward as well.
Reliability: I do not know how to check this one.
Learning curve/availability of training materials: There are plenty of ways to learn more. Not only can a person look at examples of others’ work, but there are video tutorials as well.
Equipment/technical requirements: standard internet and windows programming seems to work just fine.
Potential for collaboration and file sharing: I do not see any option for that.
Cost of use: So far, free.
Accessibility from home, school, or classroom: If one has internet…
Multi-media capabilities (such as animation, sound, video elements): Animation, I do not know. Sound and video elements absolutely and it works great.
Engagement/motivational factors: One can make a presentation that looks incredibly professional. This is on par with being a newscaster or reporter. It does not take much to seem as though everything presented is official. It can be a great way to show a house, artwork, etc. because it is easy to create a panoramic effect.

This one is my favorite simply because it looks so remarkable, so beautiful, and there are countless options for layering pictures and text so that a person is really creating their own.

Chemical Reactions

While teaching third grade in South America, one of the issues that came up every year was the sticky subject of identifying chemical reactions versus physical ones. I decided to make this point my topic of study when out exploring Internet sites.
I was able to find a number of sites which explained things using big words and a few pictures. I was also able to find a number of sites which gave some great lists of science experiments that can be done but there were two sites that stood out as best facilitating a young child's understanding of chemical reactions. These sites were Andrew Radar's Studio and BBC's Bitesize. What I really loved about BBC's Bitesize is that there is plenty of humor and fun illustrations to keep children entertained. They are reacting and causing things to occur by clinking their mouse, or sliding an image on the page. In this way, they are engaged in the process in more than a mental way. Another thing that I loved is the tests at the end of the lesson which give the students something to measure how much they understood what they saw.
One way that I can tie these sites into a lesson is through using two examples. Students can pour two materials together, such as sand and salt and then try to take them apart. We can discuss how even if the materials were sugar and salt and really hard to take apart, it is still physical if we can. It would take a long time, but we can take them apart. Then we (I) could do a chemical reaction such as burning a piece of paper and allow the students to see how we can not every change that back to being paper again. We could also then discuss how when heat is involved, it is often a chemical reaction which is occurring. Students could take aluminum/metal and put it in a solution which will cause rusting as well. The website's interactive offerings fit well with explaining these experiences.

The students would need to view the site after we mix the salt and sand and before we would work with chemical reactions. This would be a challenge if I do not have computer/Internet access for all my students during that time. The use of a computer lab in the middle of a science lesson would be tricky, but attainable, I believe.

References:
Andrew Rader’s Studio. (1997-2009). Retrieved on June 11, 2010 from: http://www.chem4kids.com/files/react_intro.html; http://www.chem4kids.com/files/react_thermo.html
BBC. Bitesize. Retrieve on June 11, 2010 from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks3bitesize/science/chemical_material_behaviour/;

It's Too Darn Hot!

For my experiment with heat insulators, I used thick ceramic mugs which could hold about two cups of liquid, a tea kettle and water, long rubber bands, foil, a car advertisement which was made from thick shiny paper, Saran Wrap, a tea clothe, and a big leaf off of a house plant, and the thermometer given to us by Walden. I chose the mugs because they were what was available which did not have wide brims. Other mugs would have let heat out faster because of more of an open area. I chose the foil because I was curious to see how much it transferred heat. So often it is used in cooking so I wanted to test it out. I used Saran wrap because it is also used quite a bit in cooking and I do not really think of it as being an insulator as much as a protector or eliminator of contaminants. I wanted to see how useful it could be at holding heat and I thought that the ability to hold in steam would work in its favor. I chose the tea clothe because they are used to wrap around bread when it is fresh out of the oven. I didn’t think that it could work too well and I wanted to see if I was right. I chose the house plant leaf because it seemed odd enough to really spice up the experiment. In South America banana leaves are used for cooking things in. I wanted to see how well this would work. I didn’t really expect too much out of it, but at the same time, the rubbery and water tight nature of the leaf caused me to think that its performance might shine out.
The results of my experiment was that it was a flop. In my efforts to protect the heat of the water and do everything for insulation’s sake, in thirty minutes I had four cups with water still high above the point of my thermometer being able to measure it. So high above, in fact, that there was no way to compare any of the scenarios. So, I tried it again, this time I waited until the water was right at 120 degrees (the highest mark on the thermometer) before I put the “lids” on. In the second experiment, I checked each one at 20 minutes and 30 minutes. Here are their times respectively: foil, 106 degrees and 99 degrees Fahrenheit; tea towel, 105 and 97 degrees Fahrenheit; slick paper, 104 and 98 degrees Fahrenheit; Saran Wrap, 108 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit; and lastly house plant leaf, 110 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. All of the experiments were close, but the Saran Wrap and plant leaf were the highest. This causes me to believe that it is the water proof things that do the best in this case but I think that the steam would be the reason for that.

Answering Questions:
“What other items might you like to test, other than water? Why might these items cool faster or stay hot longer?” I think that something like hot dogs might be a good idea because the heat will be less gaseous and more solid/conduction related. I think that a leaf might still work, but other materials might shine out more with a different movement of heat which is not water related. I would love to test out bread and potatoes. Potatoes should have a much longer cooling time. They seem to hold heat well. However, I would love to test something like eggs and try to find a good way to keep them warm without overcooking them.

How might you set up this or a similar experiment for students in your classroom? How could you make this experiment more fun, interesting, or engaging for your students? How might you design this experiment so that it is relevant to students’ lives? I think that I would use a prompt to make it more interesting for my students. I would ask them to think of something during the week that they eat and really enjoy which is hard to keep nice and warm. I would ask them to also bring in things that they already use at home to keep things warm. After that, we can go from there at testing materials out to see which works better and also test different items to see what works best for them. I would let the students know that if we find anything conclusive that we are going to prepare our information to share it with others and help others to share in our new understandings. Part of what we put up will be an area where people can respond to what we posted with their thoughts, comments, etc.

A Swinging Pendulum

Setting the basis for the work:

I chose to do an experiment based on the question of: what type of pendulum takes longer to come to a state of rest, a light or heavy one? I started out holding a string with a washer on it and counting one-one thousand. That was a fool-hardy idea. After a while I found my cell phone had a stopwatch option and I used some old yearbooks, the string and washers from our Laureate kit, plus a medium-small washer I already had (any washers graduating in size and weight should work), and an old broken children’s sunglasses arm to string the string through and hold it out at a couple of centimeters from the books and side of the table. I tried to tie a knot on the washer side which balanced the weight as best as I could, and I measured the string out 12 inches from the washer to the sunglasses arm. Holding the string level with the books with my hand above the washer, and using my other hand to tap the stopwatch button, I took time measurements for each washer at least three times.
The issue of what exactly constitutes rest was major because the washer never did come to a full rest. Each time it would just keep going, moving from a side to side motion into a more circular motion. Sometimes the wind would blow through the window, or a person would walk by and these motions would cause the washer to alter course. That being said, I carefully watched the washer for indications that the motion was no longer side to side and then I stopped the stopwatch. I also used the smallest washer as an anchor to rest all other washers on, so it was included into each and every experiment. With that in mind, my final calculations reached averages of small, 2.40.77; medium-small & small, 3.21.64; medium-large & small, 3.54.90; and large & small, 6.26.85. Thus, without any doubt, it is clear that the weight of the washer did indeed impact how long it took before the pendulum came to a rest. I did actually expect this to be the case, but the experiment confirmed it.

What went well during the experiment? What did not work well?

The idea of stopping the stopwatch when the pendulum was not REALLY at rest bothered me. I should like to have a better measurement than the human eye guessing at when to stop!
Also, the whole reason behind the sunglasses arm was because the string was rubbing up against the books and friction was stopping the swinging motion on one side. At other times when first starting a measurement, the pendulum would also hit the table, or books and thus that messed up the measurement as well. So, the arm was my solution, but even then there was room for the string to slide around a little bit and I would have preferred for that to not be the case.

Based on your past experiences with scientific inquiry, what modifications would you make to this experiment to get a different or modified result?

I think that another modification would be to make a hook from a paperclip and use that to hang the washer off of. Perhaps this would help keep the balance more correctly and also allow for only one washer to be measured at once. This would not change the comparison, either way, more weight would still mean more time, but it would create a more clean presentation. Yet another issue, I believe, which would improve the experiment would be to use the same washer, just adding more. The reason why I would do that is that the washers were not equally different. I had no scale to weigh them on, but some were thicker than others rather than just wider in diameter. Also, some seemed to be made out of aluminum while others out of a stronger, heavier metal. Thus, I have no real way to give you the right data to replicate this experiment, even if I were to give you diameter measurements for the washers, apart from perhaps both of us having the same Laureate Inc. Science kit.
I also noticed that the string kept oscillating. It would go in a general back and forth motion but occasionally it would move a couple of degrees one way or another. I do not have the reason for that, but perhaps the knot made is involved.

How might you set up this or a similar experiment for students in your classroom? How could you make this experiment more fun, interesting, or engaging for your students?

I have set up this sort of experiment for my students, only they were trying to use the force of gravity on the washers to move books off the table when the books were placed on wax paper, regular paper, no paper, and a towel. Setting up this experiment for students would not be hard, but getting them to identify the concerns that I listed above would take training. Only a trained eye, or at least an observant eye would notice that the string is rubbing against the books and altering the experiment. As far as more fun or interesting, I really do not know at the moment. I will have to really think about that one for a while. It is actually pretty boring to watch a string moving back and forth and wait for it to stop moving over a length of time which is close to five minutes.

How might you design this experiment so that it is relevant to students’ lives?

Perhaps we could use swings instead and let the children be the mass in that case. I don’t know, but I believe that they would at least enjoy themselves more that way. Another aspect is to create a meaningful reason for this, or to answer the question: “So what?” Why would students want to learn this? Why is it valuable or useful to them? If I currently had an answer to that, I believe that creating a fun and interesting experiment would flow naturally. However, at the moment I do not know what environment would cause them to need to know this.


What specifically would you like students to learn from this experiment? Did you achieve this goal?

While I was creating this experiment, a child/friend of mine came by. She wanted to touch the string and I had to quickly stop her from altering my trial run. To her it is a game just to watch the pendulum swinging. She started to talk about it and she was under the impression that the weight of the washers would slow down the string rather than lengthening the time in which it moved. I believe she thought this because big things often move slower than light things when they are things like cars or trains. What I don’t think that she understood is that those things are also harder to stop because of inertia. Her parents wanted her to go take a bath so I could not include her in witnessing my experiment, but I would want her to experience this experiment just so that she saw the importance of trying things out and checking hypothesis and changing misconceptions. Yes, a heavy wagon is slower to get started, but try and take that cart down a hill and see if the wagon isn’t ready to roll you over! Students do not experience this as much today because children do not need wagons. Their parents often drive them everywhere! So, if nothing else, this experiment could be a lesson in creating, and running and experiment, and re-adjusting a hypothesis as you go. I don’t think that student have any greater a teacher than to see for themselves how their expectations did not work out like they thought. If something goes differently than expected, they do not feel corrected, or called out. It is the human aspect, the attention of a teacher or colleague that can make them feel self-conscious about being “wrong”.