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.