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”.

How was students’ learning was positively impacted

I believe that my students' learning was positively impacted by a science inquiry lesson on weather instruments because it introduced them at the elemental level to some significant reasons for studying the weather and what steps in technology were made to form the foundational elements of the study of weather.

Through the introduction they learned about Galveston, Tx, an example of where a hurricane in 1900 passed through causing great damage, because it was not recognized as a threat. They then followed a train of logic to come to the point of acknowledging that if weather needs to be studied, then we need to know what is used to do that.

After being given directions and materials, they created instruments to gather weather and they predicted what those instruments were used for. I reaffirmed or disputed their predictions based on what information I had gathered on the topic to present to them. Through this, they were able to experience in a real, physical and exploratory way some aspects to creating science instruments, and solving questions about what they were made for. This all was very teacher lead, but it also was guiding the students to think it through for themselves, much like the "Dancing Raisins" taught by Banchi and Bell (2008).

The instruments themselves were not that useful apart from being a physical 3D representation of an accurate instrument. I would not use them to measure the weather, and having the students do so would only cause erroneous misunderstandings of what it means to be an effective scientist and make precise recordings of information. Thus, the introduction wet their interest, provided an example of the items and introduced the tools' names and uses in an elemental yet memorable way, but these rude examples would need to be substituted with better, more helpful tools in order to proceed in a scientifically sound way.

The assessment at the end of the lesson had to be brief. The students were on a tight schedule to make it to their buses. I had the students write down either the name of the description of two weather instruments. They were then supposed to write why a meteorologist would use them. If they got done early, they could write about a scientist whom they were introduced to through our lesson. Only one student got the "extra credit" right. One student wrote that a scientist = a meteorologist as her answer to that question. Too many of the students could not tell me what the names of the tools were and had to use descriptions instead. However, this was an introduction; these instruments are new to the students for the most part. As a response to this problem, I would post pictures and names of instruments around the class to remind them. Another issue is that many students described the instruments and what they measured, but not why a scientist would want them. This would be the sort of thing that I would probably wait until the middle of the end of the unit to retest them and see if they had a better grasp of the information. So many students did not yet show that they had a grasp on why these instruments would be important. I think that their understanding of how weather works needs to be developed more for that to happen because at this point they do not have much of a foundation about weather to try to attach our activity to.

Reference

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

What Happens If the Polar Ice Melts?

When I did my iceberg experiment, nothing much happened. At first the ice stuck to the bottom of the bowl, so I could not efficiently fill it. When I dislodged the ice, it only slightly stuck out of the top, and it even moved soon after so that less was above the surface. I then filled the water to the very brim. After it had all melted, there was only surface tension, nothing seems to have went over the sides. So, although I contributed this to an ice cap example rather than an example of glacier melting, and although I believe my experiment to be an anomaly, so I want to repeat the experiment, I have to say that nothing much happened and I am wondering why. I was all prepared to see the water spill judging from the PBS show which I watched. So far it leads me to believe that nothing much happens if the polar ice melts. What was the results that you all had? Why did my bowl not overflow?

STEM strageties Lesson Plan Reflection

Planning Process: The lesson plan was rather abstract in this case compared to what I normally plan about for classes. This was partially because I am not in a specific classroom right now, partially because I did not see what much of the readings had to do with the lesson plan, and partially because I had all this information from the readings that I felt should be used. The idea was not original to me, it seems, because Buxton & Provenzo (2007) suggest a similar idea under the title of Theory into Practice 4.1, on page 98 of their book . Their suggestion under Theory into Practice 4.3 could also apply in this context.

I chose to create a lesson plan on it because I read all the information under the course readings and sites, which was plenty, and ended up looking more thoroughly at a number in depth. By the time I looked at the lesson plan, I was overwhelmed with an amazing amount of information, about scientists, diverse students and what being a scientist should mean to them, and I knew that there was plenty more that I didn't have time to plummet.

The lesson plan seemed unrelated to all the things that I had read, apart from the 5 E's strategies. I ended up researching what the learning styles was refering to, what the PA standards would be in context, refamiliarizing or familiarizing myself with what the NSES, NSTA, NBPTS, and Project 2061 standards were, thus feeling like I was doing over two weeks worth of readings in only one weeks worth of time. Because the readings from this week were still all fresh in my mind, and would seem to have been important enough to do something about, I then felt the need to create my lesson plan on implementing a paradym shift for my students about what a scientist is and their significance to the community. As for my own misconceptions growing up, I am convinced that I would have chosen to become an animal doctor had I had a more positive and stronger scientific influence in my life growing up, so the readings convicted me to make such a lesson a priority.

The 5 E's: Ironically, it fit very easily, almost too easily, into the suggestions of the 5 E's (2006) because the whole idea was to engage the students in analyzing what they already believe scientists to be and act like, to get them to figure out how realistic those images are, to compare what they learn with what they thought for similarities and differences, to apply that new knowledge to their own lives and community needs, and to make sure that there are not an misunderstandings through students writing and reflecting on what they learned. Using these parts fit naturally.

Difference from normal planning, and implementations concerns: The difference between my normal planning and this one is that I was repeating myself often in order to address the question or concern of the lesson template in one area or another, and that there were parts to this lesson plan that although they were listed, I do not feel that I know enough about what specifically is being asked to know if I am addressing it adequately. I don't know if I am planning well enough for a diverse group, or if I am addressing the needed differentiation of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

My experience is that this seemed easy to plan when I thought I was writing a lesson on teaching students about current science issues and scientists. My experience became hard when I realized that the lesson was not supposed to be connected to that at all. My experience became easy when I realized that I could do that anyway, but then my end experience is that I will not know if that is appropriate until it is too late to correct it.

We were never taught how to fill out one of these correctly, or use it correctly to address the situation. I can fill it out just fine! The question is, am I planning in a way that is using the template adequately? No doubt I will find the answer at least to some extent when I get back my grade, however, is that then fair form? If my expectations for my students is that I show them, teach them, what I want, and make it clear, should that not also be true here?

Implementing such a lesson is not hard though. The students will be able to use writing, social studies themes on community, investing as citizens in that community, and science together.
They can learn about someone that is relevant to them to add significant meaning and personal impact to their efforts, and explore ideas individually and as a group. It naturally uses many strategies, learning style flexibility, and addresses diverse needs. The only issues I can see is 1)that I will need to do quite a bit of preparation work to make materials for ESL students, an information sheet for students to fill out required fields of information, scanning websites for appropriate information, etc., & 2) that I will need to have enough computer use to make it possible for students to have enough time to fulfill their work requirements, or that I will need to be able to send the work home if the students' paces are slow.

References:
Buxton, C.A., & Provenzo, E.F., Jr. (2007). Teaching science in elementary & middle school: A cognitive and cultural approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

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

The Thoughts Behind Science

Reading through materials for this week's course has got me so excited about science. I feel like I am using science to analyze how I ...use science! My views, my philosophies, my understandings about the nature of science and its uses are all being discussed and I am so excited about delving into these areas and in discussing and listening to others on the topic. What impact will my study of science have on what I accomplish/learn and how I will use it? What results will my philosophies have as they matriculate to my students? The broad, big picture is so much of the way that I organize ideas that it makes me look forward to what comes next.

Here we blog again...

I am out again...blogging! This time I am blogging in the name of science and education. I blog so that others might share with me in my learning. I blog, because my university requires it! :0) So here's to those who are reading this! I hope that you enjoy all that is to come as we explore some science together.