What We Don't Know We Can Find In The News

Using the news and current events are a great way to teach science information that is relevant to today.  For Science-in-the-News I used the website Newsela to gather my articles for astronomy.  In Newsela, you can search by grade level, topic, main idea, or vocabulary.  When I was searching for articles I looked for topics that sparked an interest for me.  All the articles were on the topic of Astronomy.  By finding articles that were interesting to me I had more of an interest of reading the articles in depth and not just glance over them.  After gathering ten articles, I created a Glogster with a short summary and link to each articles.  Glogster is an interactive custom poster.  This is my Glogster.  By using the articles we then created a TagCrowd.  TagCrowd is a webpage that creates a clip art based off of the most common words found in all the articles. TagCrowd allows you to enter the text of a articles and it will pull out the most common words, with the most common words are the biggest and boldest.  This is what TagCrowd created:

 Using these websites was very exciting and interesting.  They are a great way to engage students in learning both science topics and technology.  Some of the other sites we have used for the world clouds are Wordle and Tagul.

From this information we then compiled a time line for the topic of astronomy.  My group used a very interactive website called Tiki-Toki. We started our timeline with Thales 624 B.C., Aristarchus 310 B.C., Galileo 1564, Stephen Hawking 1942, NASA 1958, Kepler Mission 2009, Pluto 2009, Deep Space 2020, and Living on Mars 2030.  As a teacher you could use this timeline in many different ways.  It can be used to teach students the chronological order of a topic, it can also be an interesting way of introducing your lessons.

Our groups Astronomy Timeline

Out Of This World

 
This project was a class assignment.  Each student was assigned a solar system topic and was to research it.  Each student would create slides using the research information they had found.  Then each student would present their topic to the class. This was an engaging way to review the solar system.



My topic was Pluto.  I named my slides Once I was a Planet.  Pluto was discovered in 1930.  It was once the ninth planet in the solar system and the farthest from the sun.  In 2006 scientist redefined the criteria that defines what a planet is.  Pluto did not meet all three criteria so Pluto lost its title as a planet in 2006 when it was demoted to a dwarf planet.  Pluto is smaller then the Earth's moon.  Pluto's atmosphere is mainly made up of nitrogen.  When Pluto is at the farthest point from the Sun in its rotation the atmosphere freezes and does not thaw until it moves closer to the Sun.  

What Does Climate Have To Do With Us?

What does climate have to do with us?  The climate project was for us to research climate and the effects of outside forces on the climate and its changes.  As a class we received a topic that was built around climate and climate changes.  Our topic was to define climate.  The definition of climate is the long-term prevailing pattern of temperature, precipitation and other weather variables at a given location.  The given location variables are latitude, elevation, ocean/wind current,  proximity to large bodies of water, and terrain.  There are also 4 major climates on our plant.  They are tropical, temperate, subarctic, and arctic.  Tropical is in lower latitudes equatorial air mass and has warm weather all year long.  Temperate has average yearly temperatures are not extreme. Subarctic is only found in the northern hemisphere. Arctic has cold winters and short cool summers.  When teaching students about climates you can have them research the clothing, jobs, farming, hunting, housing, and hobbies people have in different climates.

We the went into the reasons for climate change, how we can help with it, and why we need to teach about it.  Climate change is the process of climates shifting because of pollution and human activity.  Students need to be taught the reasons for climate changes on our Earth.  By teaching students how climate change works and how they can help make a difference, students can become more interested in the subject.  You never know how big a change one student can make if they are just given the opportunity to make a difference.

To Be In 7th Grade Again

As a project this semester we were given the task of designing a science fair project as a seventh grader.  We were to follow the rubric given to Mrs. Foster-Faith’s middle school students.  Mrs. Foster-Faith asked us to complete this project as if we were middle school students and then present the project at the school-wide science fair.  

    My project was called What Makes Ice Melt Faster?  I started by remembering the steps of the scientific method: identify the problem, formulate a question, construct a hypothesis, gather information, test your hypothesis, analyze and draw a conclusion, and communicate the results.  I started with the problem of wanting to know is there was any substance that could melt ice.  Then, I came up with the question what makes ice melt faster?  Based off my question I constructed the hypothesis of if you add 1 tablespoon of salt to water than the ice cubes will melt faster.  After the hypothesis was made I did an experiment using three cups of water, each marked with the substance that was added to it.  The cups were labeled water, sugar, salt.  I then added three ice cubes to each cup along with a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar to the marked cups.  I then started a timer and waited for the ice to melt.  I repeated the experiment four times in total and recorded the data for each experiment.  I also documented the experiment by taking picture every ten minutes.  When my last experiment was done, I think averaged the times together to get the final totals.  The results the experiments were as follows: cup with water had an average of 84.34 minutes, cup with sugar had an average of 92.45 minutes, and cup with salt had an average of 78.43 minutes.  Based off the results of the experiments I wrote up my conclusion.  My conclusion is that my hypothesis was proven correct.  By adding 1 tablespoon of salt to water the ice cubes in that cup melted faster.  When you look at the result table you see that the cup with salt melted on an average of 5 minutes and 51 seconds faster than the control which was the water and 14 minutes and 2 seconds faster than the cup with sugar in it.  When putting my tri-folded board together I kept in mind organization and neatness.  On my board I displayed my problem, question, hypothesis, material list, process, results, conclusion, and pictures.  The final step of the scientific method is to communicate the results, which we did by being a part of the school-wide science fair.  

I followed Mrs. Foster-Faith’s rubric when designing my project.  The project was graded on hypothesis, materials, procedure/experimental design, results using tables/graphs, conclusion, visuals, organization/neatness, mechanics, originality, and research.  After seeing my rubric grades I realized that I designed my science fair project to a high standard.  I did however leave a whole part out.  That part was the research aspect of the scientific method.  I think this task was an enlightening one.  By seeing this project in a student's eyes you understand the anxiety and the doubt that a student may go through when getting this project.

Our Time Is Up

So our time has come to an end with our science after-school program and it's time to celebrate the students and our accomplishments.  In the after-school program the students learned about about physical science, life science, earth science, and the scientific method.  The students of our program were amazing to work with.  They were engaging and respectful through the whole process.  For our celebration our cooperating teacher had a great surprise for all the students.  She made liquid nitrogen ice cream.  This process is pretty simple but, needs to have safety in mind.  She added half-and-half into a metal pot and a graduate student held the pot with pot holders.  As the teacher poured the liquid nitrogen into the pot the graduate student stirred the half-and-half.  We made a bit of a mess, but after, a while the half-and-half turned into ice cream.  Everyone found this process to be very cool and it was a great way to end our time together. 

To Inquiry About The Inquriy Process

Inquiry Instruction Lesson:
The inquiry lesson plan focused the execution of the scientific method.  First, we reviewed the scientific method with the students.  Then, Michael and I modeled the process that the students were going to use in their experiment.  We then showed the students a prezi on magnets which would aid their understanding of the topic for the experiment.  The students then conducted an experiment using the scientific method on the topic of magnets and liquid.  During the experiment students were to fill out a graphic organizer following the scientific method.  At the end of the lesson we had all the groups communicate their results to finish out the scientific method.

 
Reflection
As we worked through the direct lesson I could feel the students excitement of the topic.  This lesson was to allowed students to explore the scientific method.  This lesson workout very well and the students were engaged in the experiment and the scientific process.  The one thing I should have changed the plan for presenting.  We only had 5 students in our class that day and we had the time.  I should have allowed all the students to present on their own.  This would have allowed everyone to see how each person can get different results.  We also ran out of time and did not get to give the students their post-assessment sheet.  I did not think I would enjoy teaching Science but, I had a very good time teaching this topic.

To Begin With The Direct Way

Direct Instruction Lesson:
The direct lesson plan focused on the scientific method.  We started with a pre-assessment sheet for the students to fill out.  We then taught the steps of the scientific method and the concept for each step.  Students learned what a scientist do and how they use the scientific method.  We used two smartboard activities for our guide practice. At the end of the lesson we gave the students a exit ticket to assess how much of the information they retained from the lesson.  

Reflection
This time around we were the last group to go.  Michael and I had worked together in our social studies class and we work very well together.  In these session I felt less scared and less intimidated.  The direct lesson flowed very well and Michael and I feed off each other very well.  This was also a great learning experience.  In our direct lesson we need to work on using more check for understanding throughout the lesson.  We should have put in more stop and think questions after every couple of slides.  This would have enforced the concepts even more.  Other things I found I need to work on is my use of academic language which was better in this lesson, but, I still caught myself saying "you guys". I had a good time teaching this topic and the students were engaged through the lesson.