BB and W

Kirsten wants to know how many strips of wire she will need to connect a bulb and battery to make the bulb light up. How many strips do you think she'll need?

A) one B) two C) three or D) four and explain your reasoning.

I would say she will need two because I don't think it will take much wire, though I think it will take more than one.

CIRCUIT LAB

A strength of the pink lab was that it is more simple and straightforward. A weakness is that if you cannot get the first step easily, you can't continue with the steps so a student may get discouraged and give up if they don't get that first step.

A strength of the yellow lab was that it is more of a challenge which is good for a student who wants to further their understanding. A weakness is that this lab is more complex-students must make different circuits and compare them which may be hard for an elementary student to grasp.

What students will learn from this lab:

NCES Standard: Physical Science Content Standard B: Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

Learning Goal: Students will know that electricity in circuits can produce light and heat and that electrical circuits require a complete loop through which an electrical current can pass.

Learning Performances: Students will be able to manipulate a large battery, wires, and a light bulb to build a circuit in order to make the light bulb light up.

Magnetism

Magnetism...what I remember:

1) What are some "real life" applications of magnetism?

I think magnets come in handy for multip[e purposes, one being the basic holder to papers you need to display on a refrigerator, a door, or a board. Magnets also play a role in holding objects together through doors with tools on them.

2) What experiences have you had with magnets in your life?

I remember working with them in grade school. Other than that, just magnets on the fridge.

3) What ideas do you have about the science of magnets?

I know that they serve a grand purpose and hold objects together but I don't remember right now what those tools are.

4) What personal understanding about magnetism helped you make these predictions?

I know that they have attraction towards each other and help hold things together.

Magnetism...what I've learned:

National Science Education Standards

Standard/Benchmark: Content Standard B: Light, heat, electricity, and magnetism

Learning Goal: Students will understand that magnets attract and repel each other and certain kinds of other materials.

Activity for Students:

Lesson idea from ehow.com - How to Make a Magnet
I would like for students to construct their own magnets. I think that this would be a good activity for them to do, not only so they can have their own magnets they made, but also for them to see how magnets work better based on how they're put together.

Materials needed:
4-inch iron or steel nail
24-inch piece of thin-guage wire with 1-inch of insulation removed from each end
D-cell battery
Steel paper clips

Procedure:
1) I will place all of the needed materials in an open, clear area.
2) Wrap the center portion of the wire tightly around the nail 20 to 30 times in one direction, leaving slack on each end. The more wire you wrap around the nail and the tighter it's wrapped, the more powerful your magnet will be. Be sure to leave enough loose wire on the ends to attach to the battery.
3) Then we will attach one loose wire to the positive side of the battery, and one loose wire to the negative side of the battery. Once both of these ends are connected, the battery becomes a magnet.
4) Students can then use the nail to pick up the paperclips. The electricity from the battery has created an electromagnetic field on the nail.

Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_2044934_make-magnet.html

Fifth feature of Inquiry

Learns communicate and justify their proposed explanations.

1) Summary - Students, acting as scientists, can communicate their results to classmates through questioning, observation, discussion, and discovery of their results.

2) Elaborate - In several different ways, students can show and communicate their results by using prior scientific knowledge and new observations, allowing for discussion. They can represent their results and experiment in a clear way so that it can be reproduced. Through this, a student community is formed. Being able to elaborate, add, and compare to each others' results forms a fuller, more complete inquiry experience.

3) "Looks" like in class - Sense of a welcoming, team, open environment. All students get the opportunity to communicate their observations and results. Students collaborate and work together by using different methods of presentation and communication. Everyone is partcipating and is included, and is student-led with teacher direction.

4) Video lesson - In introduction of lesson, students share ideas with each other when the teacher tells them to "whisper to their neighbor." Throughout the experiment, students were working together and communicating their discoveries. They were allowed to discuss among themselves throughout the lesson.

INES Chap 1 and 2

Shifting from Activitymania

Whew, this article really hit home! I agree that activities are better than text-book lessons in a science classroom and, prior to this science methods course, I thought hands-on activities were the way to go as well. From what I can remember, this is what it was like in elementary school-and most years I actually did like science. I agree with the article in that activitymania isn't bad, but inquiry is a step further, and allows students to learn better and more effectively as they relate it to their own lives.

The chart comparing the two also really helped me see the differences. One of the things that attracts me about inquiry is that students are not being passive; instead they are making their own hypothesis based on their questions and observations, and making their own list of procedures they will need and how they plan to go about their experiment. I think that is very important. I know from experience that when I, either individually or with a small group of classmates, have to totally design on our own experience, we earn way more! I'm glad that in our science methods course, we aren't all about activitymania and we are learning about this important inquiry procedure early.

Week of the Wild Reflection

    Going to the Week of the Wild on Wednesday, September 7 was a beautiful day filled with reflection and feeling like I was reliving the sixth grade. I was in the group called Outdoor Adventure with Kirkwood Elementary, and upon arriving shared my activity right away with the students, a book called Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes. I chose the book initially because of its wonderful illustrations, which I got the chance to peek at in my Children’s Literature class. The book also has poems with guessing games which offers clues as to what’s being described. Then, when you turn the page, not only is the animal/plant/aspect of nature revealed, but also an explanation of how it works or what it does in nature. For example, there is a page describing how dew works and how grasshoppers function both in the morning and in the night.

      Starting the morning, we first headed to a trail area near the main site of the shelter. First we played a game where one person was the “hawk” and everyone else hid from them but the rule was they had to at least have one of their eyes on the hawk the whole time. I got spotted right away, but there were some very good hiders in that group! Each time the leader had to tell them to eventually reveal themselves, because they were so hard to spot. We then preceded with animal tracking, where we walked through long grass and a faint trail, and then down a steep hill to reach a sandy/muddy beach area on the lake. The teacher gave the students and myself a sheet of paper with different common animal tracks. He then gave the students all an old plastic lid that was cut out which they could place around their found track. He then told them how he would make the “mix” (Plaster of Paris) which he described as looking kind of like pancake mix, but how it hardens quickly, though they were planning to pick up their track at the end of the day. He told the students a story of a student who's Great Dane ate the whole dried track once too, which amused them.                         

   The students then set out excitedly to find a track, not wanting to get the common found deer track. To my surprise, a lot of the students found and picked tracks such as raccoon, muskrat, skunk, and opossum. We then walked up a little grassy hill to an area with stone platforms which suggested they were once homes/structures. Human tracking was next. As we walked around all the platforms, the teacher asked the students to guess what was there once. Afterwards, some of the students thought a farm, some a boating/bath house area for the lake-goers, some a village. The teacher then revealed that it was indeed a farm, back in the 1940’s/1950’s before the Coralville reservoir was built. I didn’t know that the lake hadn’t been there before, so it was interesting to learn some history. Basically, the people who lived there were up on a hill, but other areas kept getting flooded. So for them, the farm people were asked to leave so the reservoir could be built to greatly reduce flooding. The teacher then showed us pictures of the structures that were there, which was neat.  

   Going back to the Week of the Wild was my first time there in ten years, when I had gone as a sixth grader with Roosevelt Elementary. I was intrigued to find out that Meredith, the leader, had been in her first year that fall of 2001 when I was there, and when she said she was with the Wetlands, I remembered her! The shelter and campfire and field area looked just the same as I remembered. It was so neat to be back there and even driving through the narrow road I felt like I was reliving the sixth grade. I loved going to Week of the Wild, and think that it’s a great, needed experience to have in the science curriculum. To get up and close with nature and be there for a whole week. Meredith told us that only some schools have a potluck and camp out there the last night, which my school did. What a wonderful and beautiful time to go to Lake MacBride and be touched by nature’s beauty.

ACTIVITY

            For my activity, I brought Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow written by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Beth Krommes (2006). This book has wonderful illustrations of butterflies, flowers, and the like. It is filled with poems which serve as guessing games giving hints as to what’s being described. Then, on the next page descriptions are given and explanations as to how these animals/plants/aspects work in nature. Here is an example of the fourth poem, “He trots through meadow-gold grass in dawn sun furred mysterious a word hunting its own meaning. Who is he?” The answer is then a rabbit and fox, and descriptions are given as to what they do in the wild. I think this a great picture book to share as a lesson in nature as well as with poetry as well.

 

Iowa Department of Education

Browsing through the Iowa Department of Education website, it is first noticed that there are flashing news coverage in light of education wizzing by. There's a tidbit of info about the story and you can click on it, or let the stories scroll by. There is quite a bit to do on the website- priority links which connect to helpful pages such as the Iowa Core curriculum standards and teacher licensure. There is a resources tab that gives gobs of info ranging from career opportunities to data, statistics, and publications. They have a research program called Intersect that gives the latest on educational issues. I really like that they have links available to different people- administrators, educators, students, families, and the community. There is info on the K-12 staff, state report cards, student data, the state board, etc.

Since there is so much info on this website, they do have a helpful A-Z index which lists everything. I like that they have calendars which tell events and due dates. I really like that they have archives in their newsroom tab of reports and events from 2011 all the way back to 2004. There is a contact page filled with not only contactee names and phone/fax numbers, but also a map showing their main location in Des Moines. There is helpful information to help a browser/reader get to know the Iowa Department of Education- about the department, director, Iowa schools, the state board, and department jobs. There is just so much info on this site! I like how they make a filled website so navigator-friendly with their helpful tabs.

Teaching for Conceptual Change - Sweater Article

I was very intrigued while reading this article about conceptual change in the science (or any) classroom. It is so true that we hold misconceptions about a variety of subjects, a lot of topics being science-related. I could see why the fourth-grade students in O'Brien's classroom would have the perception that "warm winter clothes" are indeed warm themselves. As I continued reading the article, it made sense that even after a few days of experimenting and the children's views being challenged and contradictory, their misconceptions would likely still linger. I think that it's a good question to consider as a teacher to cover material, or uncover information from students. It's hard to grapple with because of today's testing emphasis. However, I think this is the route to go-real learning...and it's what Dewey and Craig said more than ninety years ago.