EDUC 6663 Week 3

What makes your goat dance?
WEEK 3 Educ 6663 Post

Wk3Assignment

I think that in order to promote interest and engagement in the sciences, teachers must find other ways to relate science to students.  One way is to associate the identities of the scientists to the students.  A reason for this is that students feel that they are so far removed from scientists that they think that they are incapable of being one.  Links that I found useful are:

Markina Brown

http://www.lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5693:markina-brown-first-in-meteorology&catid=55&Itemid=145

African American Scientists

https://webfiles.uci.edu/mcbrown/display/faces.html

 Another way that educators can help students understand these scientific phenomena, appreciate how the natural laws of science influence lives, and consider what they can do to help those affected by such a tragedy is by connecting students to community organizations.  Helping the community enables students to understand how people can work together to help each other.  Movies like “Pay It Forward” have spurred a national Pay It Forward Day http://payitforwardday.com/.  Students can begin small and then continue to something big! 

Regarding students contributing to relief efforts, check out Cleveland students at http://www.clevelandbanner.com/view/full_story/14542556/article-Lee%E2%80%99s-Summer-Honors-students-contribute-to-tornado-relief-efforts.  I think that this is a great story because students are not overwhelmed by the enormity of helping; they can help on many levels. 

Finally, there is a program that educators can use year-round called the International Baccalaureate Program.  I have tried to find some links that are useful, and this is the best one - http://www.ibo.org/

Please let me know if these sites MAKE YOUR GOAT DANCE!

 

SCIE6662 Ask a Scientist Post

What makes your goat dance?

Ask a Scientist  - Week 3 SCIE 6662 Post

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Skloots, 2010) talks about the survival of the HeLa cells. We have no secrets from your cells but the survival of the HeLa cells still hold many secrets for us. Naturally, a cell is prescribed to expire so that it makes room for other cells. This process is called apoptosis. However, when cells fail to expire in the prescribed manner of apoptosis and proliferate wildly, that resulting situation is called cancer.

The question that I want to pose to Ask a Scientist is the following: If cancer cells proliferate at such a fast rate, why does it take so long to diagnosis cancer when this occurs? I really liked this website.  I will tell my students to visit this website to answer unit questions as a challenge/early finisher task.  However, I will have to do my own research; if the answer is not already on the site, I cannot assign students to ask a question.  If it takes too long, then we have already progressed to another unit.

I learned a lot from this website.  For instance, the “Science Fair” section is very informative and well, it’s filled with a lot of fun activities.  It also takes my students through the science fair process and that is what I will be focusing on. 

Unfortunately, they did not answer me yet.  I became more and more interested as to how cells operate, especially after completing the web lab on http://www2.edc.org/weblabs/WebLabDirectory1.html.  This is another really cool site that tells you how cells behave.  I really enjoyed observing how alleles, and gametes separated and joined with others in each phase. 

What makes your goat dance?

Sci6662

Application (Part 2): Evaluating Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

For our new class, I was introduced to a variety of webtools.  I tried to download/view a variety of them, but couldn’t – perhaps I had Windows XP I was unable to download.  I have to create a new presentation and would love showing my students what I can do! 

I really enjoyed using the Prezi!  It is very easy to use, and has that cute feature of creating my own segment of pictures, text, and layout patterns.  One special feature is that it zooms to the picture – telling the audience what to focus on.  This gives the urgency of creating a very important message to your audience.  I really learned from the easy three stage tutorials: Get Started, Next Level, and Sharing.  It was really easy to learn!  In addition, you can take your PowerPoint and Prezi them as well! This makes Prezi easy to view, share and convert from PowerPoint presentations.

It can get a bit confusing though. Be careful the viewers do not get dizzy viewing the Prezi.  It is free to use and download!

I would definitely recommend Prezi to all of my colleagues.  I think that viewing the Prezi on the Promethean or SmartBoard will be very engaging to my students. 

Here’s the link to the Prezi:  http://prezi.com/learn/

What makes your goat dance?

Week 6 - 21st Century Topics and Tools

I chose electricity - mainly household circuits and safety as my topic because kids are able to construct simple circuits.  It is mainly the construction and engineering of a circuit that I think would really engage children and get them interested in science. 

Connecting everyday electrical uses to their learning really encourages students to encourage them to see science in a whole new light.  (sorry no pun intended!) 

Creating new circuits encourages students to solve problems and facilitates collaborative learning.  In all of the websites, basic understanding is repeated in child friendly communication; this creates a model for communication that students can imitate.  And, by using the computer to investigate electrical circuits will motivate students to conduct further investigations.  This encourages independent learning.

websites
http://kids.discovery.com/tell-me/curiosity-corner/science/how-do-electric-circuits-work
emonstrates electrical circuits

http://www.howtogeek.com/94291/squishy-circuits-provide-kid-friendly-electronics-exploration/
gives a great how-to project using playdough to create a circuit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE5iadS9cqc
has 6 episodes that introduces kids to electricity and it uses

Week 4 - The Heat is On

In my experiment on insulation and heat transference,  I observed that aluminum cover held the highest water temperature, proved to be the best insulator, causing the least heat transference or cooling. This experiment chose four types of materials such as paper, aluminum foil, plastic, and cloth.  Materials can be considered good conductors or poor conductors by their ability to transfer heat between substances that are in direct contact with each other.  The better the conductor, the more rapidly the heat will transfer. The poorer the conductor, the lesser their  ability to transfer.  Temperature is affected by the loss of or transference of energy (Tillery, Enger, Ross, 2008)

If Iwere to repeat this experiment, I would not use the glass containers.  Even though they were effective insulators, they were also effective conductors, and handling them was difficult because they were so hot.  The material I would like to chose for a container would be cardboard material because the outside would be easier to hold.

I would like to test a breakfast cereal or soup.  They might not react the same way, due to the added ingredient of salt.  Salt would keep the items hotter longer. 

In the classroom, I would like to cook soup for my kids and pretend that they were bears and Goldilocks came over and, well, you know what happens...  I think that they would find this engaging and this would bring real-world connections into the lesson.  The next time, they have soup, they will always remember why it stays hot, or why it loses its heat and cools off quickly. 

I would like students to also consider the spoons that they used and try to establish the spoon material as whether it is a good conductor or not. 

Week 2 - The E in STEM or Understanding Momentum

The question that I chose to investigate is “How does the steepness of a slope and mass affect a collision outcome?” In my experiment, I released a toy car with a quarter inserted inside down a ramp and measured the distance the quarter travelled after colliding with a barrier.  Then I repeated the same experiment with a dime and measured the distance the coin travelled after the collisions.  It was interesting that the dime travelled the farthest; I would have expected the quarter to have travelled the farthest.  But then I realized that like a real car accident, if you are not securely in your seat, then you will sustain the most injuries.  The quarter fit more securely in the car than the dime. 

The experiment was very successful; but I think that constructing the ramp and the collision barriers took a lot of effort.  I think that I will have to find materials that are easier to work with for my students. My students really enjoy working with toy cars and constructing the ramps, measuring, and charting the results are all activities that they would find engaging. 

This experiment is directly relevant to all students because it talks about seatbelt safety.  They can direcly relate the outcomes to their lives. 

Week 6 Science Lesson

In this lesson that introduced energy and energy sources, these students were able to gain a deeper understanding of the energy of motion.  The engagement was a K-W-L chart on what background information they had on energy.  I introduced the lesson vocabulary.  This was followed by a partner-reading and fluency building activity that used the science text and repeated the vocabulary words.  I introduced the task of using clay, toothpicks, paper and a car to create a car that could not be moved by using hands.  However, I did not show them how to put it together! 

I feel that this was a successful lesson for the students because they were able to create something for and by themselves.  In addition, the lesson challenged me to become more of a facilitator and not a lecturer. 

What makes your goat dance?