Plate Tectonics

As I have taught Plate Tectonics these past few years, I have begun to love the subject and have looked for ways to make it easier to understand for my middle school students.  It is a hard concept to comprehend when you realize that the entire surface of the Earth is moving.  I found the model that I used in my lesson from a website by a Purdue University professor, http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~braile/edumod/foammod/foammod.htm.
The models were easy to make and in fact did not cost me anything because as I looked  through my house and my parents, I found enough foam to make all of the models that I need.  The students had a great time using the models and even though they had covered Plate Tectonics in sixth grade, many of the students stated that they understood better how the movement of the plates caused valleys and mountains.  I enjoyed the models and have used clay models in the past, but the bigger foam models worked better and the students had a great time causing the mountains to pop up.  I am definitely saving my foam models to use with my sixth graders when we study plate tectonics in a few weeks.

Compassionate Students

As a mother and a teacher, I often have pondered on how to make my daughters and students more compassionate toward each other and to people less fortunate than themselves.  The area where I teach, is composed of middle class and upper middle class families and then the neighboring town is one of the poorest in the nation, the students see first hand what poverty does to individuals and communities.  How to get students to understand and be willing to help others less fortunate then themselves when a natural disasters strikes when they are almost immune to poor communities because of their proximity to one?

When the earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, I was teaching Eighth grade Science and we were studying earthquakes.  The destruction was unbelievable as we watched CNN.  I had the students immediately start to  research the country and what the type of fault line and the type of soil and building structures that were in Port a Prince.  The students were amazed at the poor conditions of the buildings, even the better buildings for the government.  The ground conditions in the areas worst hit were filled in areas, which the students had just studied were the worst possible building sites.  It brought to life the poor conditions that the Haitian people lived in.  When just a month latter and Chile was hit with an earthquake that was much stronger, but the damage was minimal because the country was prepared for earthquakes.  The economy in Chile is also stronger and there are better living conditions, even for the poorest people.  The difference between the two countries was dramatic for  the students to realize.  At this point, my students wanted to do something to help the people of  Haiti.  I had them research the different organizations and they had to look at how the organizations spent the money, if they were already in the country before the earthquake and what type of services were they providing.  I had to
 start the path to caring as a research project, but the natural concern that middle school students have kicked in and the students were willing to do more to help.  The student collected money with the student council and decided to donate the money towards the Red Cross.  

The Red Cross has a section on their website that gives ideas that youth can do to help others in need.  Here is the link:  http://redcrossyouth.org/.    It was an eye opener to my students about what they could do here to help other in need.

Ask a Scientist

The Ask a Scientist website is neat place to browse and find information, but it is not a place to find out information on a specific question quickly.  It states on the home page that it will take at least two weeks for a response, but I did not receive a response in the last couple of weeks since I submitted my question.  I wonder if my questions was to specific.  I asked "how different cells can have the same transport proteins but only certain transport protein are "turned on" to allow in the correct molecules?"   I know that the needs of the cell determine what enters and leaves the cell, so that is probably what turns on the needed transport molecules.  I copied and pasted the same question into Google and found these other websites that answered the question.

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-6533.html

http://www.biologyreference.com/Ma-Mo/Membrane-Transport.html

http://virtuallaboratory.colorado.edu/Biofundamentals/lectureNotes/Topic2E_Membranes.htm

These sites help answer the questions on different levels, from pretty simplistic to college level.  I often get in  trouble with the media specialist at my school because I do have my students "Google" an answer instead of going through the schools website.  I work with my students on how to recognize what is a trusted website and what websites are not trustworthy.    These three websites fit the criteria of a trusted website, they are either a part of a university, or a part of a trusted organization, such as Scientific America or uses resources from peer review journals.  To find reliable websites is important for students as schools use more 21st century technology.  

Nature's Perfect Predators- Mountain Lion

Web 2.0

I had planned on doing much research on different Web 2.0 programs over the summer.  My school district was able to get a technology bond passed and all classrooms in the district are being converted to "Classroom of Today" rooms with installed smart boards, projectors, built in speakers, etc being installed.  The district is in the process of finding grants so that we can have a one to one computer program.  I have not used much modern technology in my class because it was almost impossible to reserve a projector or the computer lab, so these changes will be great.

I have been experimenting with Glogster for my project.  A fellow Science Olympiad coach in my region is a Glogster ambassador and has given many presentations on it, so she has been giving me hints and examples to view and use.  I like how I can make one "poster" and I can include notes, any video clips I want, and other data, pictures and what else I would like.  It is like a one place stop for the information on what topic I am presenting that day or week.  I also like how I can control what a student can do and upload if they are going to work on projects.  Students can get to their Glogster projects from any computer by using the user name and password that was assigned by the teacher.  There are different levels of Glogster programs, including. a free one that does not have all of the features.  There are examples and tutorials available with Glogstser.  Since students can design the glog that want, I feel that students would have fun and be excited to create projects with Glogster.

The other Web 2.0 program that I am going to investigate more is Haiku.  This program allows you to set up discussion boards, blogs, wikipages and even quizzes where I am able to collect grades.  This program allows you to set up pages by class periods, so that you can quickly modify projects for each hours needs.  Haiku also allows the uploading of Google Docs and will help create Google Docs so that students are able to work on projects together.  There is one free version, that works for up to 75 users, and different prices for different versions depending on the number of classes/students and the amount of storage.  The website for Haiku says that it will work with your schools current SIS program to upload student information.

21st Century Skills

I am always trying to find more cool websites and web quests for my students to view.  My district is installing up to date technology in the form of data projectors and smart boards.  This will allow me to share more websites for the students to work with.  There are many great websites for heat transfer and one of the best visual ones I found was at http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/light_lessons/thermal/transfer.html. It is associated
with NASA and has a great picture of convection currents.  When I have my students study heat transfer, I have the students observe a demonstration where I place water in a aluminum foil roasting pan and place a candle underneath it to heat the water.  I have them feel the temperature of the water and then place a drop of food coloring directly over the candle.   The students are able to see the food coloring circulate.  The students then feel the water again to see that there is hardly and temperature change.  This allows the students to understand that the smallest temperature change causes convection currents to occur.  By using this website the students are becoming more literate because of the ability to view images that they would not see in real life.  We can talk about heat transfer, we can experience heat transfer and do demonstrations, but the ability to see radar images and the use of other technology to view the transfer, makes the subject more visual for the students to understand.

I use this website http://classroom.jc-schools.net/sci-units/energy.htm to help find many activities and other images.  This website is a great place to find other good websites to visit and lesson plans.

Heat Transfer

I decided to use this structured inquiry procedure as a way to settle an argument between my two daughters.  Both of my daughters are involved in a sport, one softball, the other horse riding.  Needless to say, they sometimes fight over their equipment and one such here lately with the cool weather has been their "Under Armor" type shirts.  Of course, one daughter was saying that her sister's shirt kept her warmer so she needed to have it over her sister.  I took both of the shirts and folded them once and placed them over the top of identical mugs that contained 46 degree Celsius water.  I placed a rubber band over the shirt and mug.  I also tested my silicon pot holder and a folded kitchen towel.  I use both when I am removing dishes from the oven, so I was interested in which one would protect my hands better.

At the end of the thirty minutes, I tested all four mugs again.  The mugs that were covered with the shirts were both at 28 degrees Celsius and the hot pad and the kitchen towel mugs were both at 26 degrees Celsius.  I can feel that my hands are equally protected with either the hot pad or the towel.  Maybe I need to get better hot pads?  :)  My daughters will find another reason to fight, because their shirts are equal when it comes to keeping in body heat.

Pendulum

I chose to complete the Pendulum experiment.  I gathered the three washers, a long shoelace, my cell phone to use as a stop watch, pen and paper.  My daughter has a computer desk that is missing a couple of nuts and is turned upside down so it was perfect to use as my stand.  Just like at school, I will use what I have to complete the experiment.  I ran three trials for each of the washers.  I put the washer on the shoe lace and tied it so that it was 70.5 cm from the knot to the bottom of the washer.  I raised the string so that it was parallel to the floor and then released it.  I timed it until it stopped moving.  I ran three trials and averaged the time for each washer.  I also massed out the washers and used the mass to compare the time to.  I had no problems with the experiment (beside my dog chasing it one time).  My average times were 90 seconds for the small washer, 38.3 seconds for medium washer and 24.7 seconds for the large washer.  The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that there was not a linear response of size and time.  I think back to the experiment and wonder if I lifted the string a little higher with the small washer so that there was more potential energy. 

I would have a similar setup for my students with ring stands, three washers and string.  Next school year when I am teaching about potential and kinetic energy, I will use this guided inquiry for my students.  After teaching the curriculum once, I am looking for different experiments for the students to perform and this would be one.  The students would feel like they are using more "scientific" equipment and it would be an easier experiment for the students to complete on their own.  I have had the students complete an similar experiment with rubber bands and rulers.  I would have the students compare this to using a swing and how long would it take to stop depending on how high they went.  The students should come from the lesson with the understanding of how potential and kinetic energy work together and how the different starting heights affect how long the pendulum would swing. 

Plop Plop Fizz Fizz Experiment

I chose to do my structured lesson on how to control the Rates of Chemical Reactions.  We had one lesson in our textbook, but I wasn't very happy with it so I went searching and found many variations of the same one that used Alka Seltzer and then an different temperatures of water and varying the surface area of the tablets and found one and changed it to suit our schools needs.  It was interesting that another teacher in my school found the same experiment and made the same changes.  I guess it is fair to say, we think along the same lines, which is great for instructing the students, not too many different ideas out there.

The kids had fun.  I did adjust it and had half of the kids do temperature and the other half do surface area.  We then combined our figures and found the averages.  This was due to time and economic reasons.  This allowed for quite the discussion of why times were so different from one group to another.  In our discussion, it was determined that the kids had different ideas of when the reaction was complete, was it when bubbles stopped coming up from the bottom or when bubbles stopped popping on top.  Even though I had told them at the beginning it was when bubbles stopped forming, kids being kids, were excited about starting the experiment and did not listen the best.  This was a great time about talking about paying attention and how to "observe".  We also discussed what the difference was of the bubbles forming and the bubbles popping, how one was due to the chemical reaction and the other was due to physical properties.

Instead of having the students complete the graphic organizer and hand it in for their lab report, I decided to grab the computer lab while it was free for a week and have the students research more about controlling chemical reactions and make a Power Point Presentation for the lab report.  The kids loved being able to work in the computer lab (the 8th graders are working on research papers, so it is hard to get in for a month or two) and the Technology Teacher is next door and she was helping the students "jazz" up their Power Points.  The students who had already had their computer elective for the year had designed Power Points as an assignment, but some students had not had it, so having the Tech teacher there was great.  I taught the students how to develop a table in Excel and then make the graph from there.  There was a lot of cooperation between students, as one student would figure out the best way to get all of the information on the table and chart, they would help the other students. I also gave the students one website to start their research, http://chemistry.about.com/od/stoichiometry/a/reactionrate.htm  this website gave them great information about how each one works.  The students had been working in their Tech class and English classes, about finding good information on the web, so this research allowed them to use those skills.  The students were also encouraged to use their textbooks, so many forget that it contains useful information also! :)  Looking over the what presentations have been turned in (the flu hit some of the students), the students went in many different ways.  Again, I can tell which students listened to instructions and read over the requirements and which students charged ahead.  Overall it was a good lesson.  We did not have much discussion about controlling reactions before we started this lesson.  I was interested to see how the students would research to find the information.  They were also given notes to fill in about the subject as a review and we will correct those this coming up week and correct any misconceptions.  Being able to design this lesson and use the technology, makes me even more eager for all of the technology improvements being complete in our building over the summer.  Now if we can find the funding and the right 1 to 1 computer program for our district, it will be great to have the students use the technology on a daily basis.

Here is the link to my website where I have posted the students work:  http://sjschools.org/1619204118268850/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=60664

Melting icebergs

I have done a similar activity with my 8th graders.  It was interesting to read the information that they had come up with both supporting the concept of global warming and against global warming. 

As the experiment showed, the ice that is in the ocean water, will not affect the level of the ocean, but as the land based ice in the polar caps and the glaciers melt, the ocean levels will rise.  This rise will cause flooding along shorelines and will affect certain islands.  The loss of the polar ice caps also will affect the overall atmospheric temperature and winds.  Inland areas will experience warmer temperatures and loss of moisture that affects how crops grow and if certain important crops can be grown. 

I would like to research more on how the loss of the polar ice caps affect the Great Lakes where I grow.  I would also like to work this activity into an interdisciplinary lesson. 

Lesson Plan

What a week.  It is the week before Midterms for my sixth and seventh graders and it has been a week of reviewing and making sure all missing assignments are in.,  They are all nervous, first time for both to have midterms. 

I was glad to see the choices of the lessons we were prepare.  With my sixth graders, we will be starting to study plate tectonics and earthquakes after midterms.  Preparing this lesson for the assignment makes that week after midterms a little easier. :)  My hardest part with this lesson is the fact that I have taught this subject for eighth graders before and this is my first year teaching sixth graders and there is a big difference in their understanding of the different subject matter.  Their attention span is smaller also.  When I wrote this lesson, I wanted to make sure that there were different activities to help keep their attention.  I have a great little video from Discovery Education that I plan on showing as an introduction along with them doing the puzzle of the continents.  I plan on the students researching the different evidence out there for plate tectonics and then make a PowerPoint presentation.  I am concerned that much of the information is over their heads, so I will continue to look for appropriate websites next week.  I am also using the lesson as an introduction into the study of earthquakes.

First Post

I am looking forward to this post and class.