December 2nd, 2008

Due to unfortunate circumstances we had a work day today. Our group finished our final project on weight and measurement and downloaded the lesson plan into our dropbox locker!! I hope all is well and your husband is getting better!!!

Ashley

November 25th, 2008

Science Fair Judging

Today we were asked to meet in Elk Point to judge a middle school science fair. It was very cool to be part of and it helps us build professional development. There were alot of great projects!! It kind of took me back to the day when we went to science fairs at our school and how interesting the projects were. I was very surprised on how smart some of those students were, alot of what they said went way over my head. I was like WHOA!! You could tell alot of the students were very excited to present their projects and we could see the passion that went into their projects. I think alot parents helped out though!!

November 20th, 2008

Today we were assigned our final lesson plan. Each group had to pick a grade level and then we were all interlocked together. I believe Dr. E called it cooking within?? Our group is doing a lesson plan on measurement and weight. We are going to have our first graders using their science textbooks as the median weight and then pick ten items around the room and decide/write in their journals whether or not the object is heavier or lighter than the textbook. Today was also a work day, to help us get ready for our final presentations.

November 18th, 2008

Our class did not meet today. Since we did not have class today our quiz and our lesson plan due dates were postponed to a later date. Instead of presenting our presentations to our cohort we were asked to place our lesson plans into our dropbox locker. Carrie and I did our second lesson plan on Birds/Owls and incorporated the book "Owl Moon." We had our students go on a bird hunt and find a variety of different birds and write in their science journals. We also incorporated an assessment called a KWL chart.

November 13th, 2008

We are now starting our second lesson plan for our science class. Today we just had a workday to plan our lesson plans. Carrie and I have decided to do our second lesson plan on birds/owls, and read the book Owl Moon. We are not teaching this lesson to the class, we are going to act as a room of teachers and present our ideas to our other colleagues.

November 7th, 2008

Today in class we did a potato activity. We were given different materials (chunks of potatoes, salt, water, and different science things). The class and I were asked to invent our own experiement and test how much salt we should put with the potato and water, and then we were to make observations on what happened within the potato activity.

October 30th, 2008

In today's class we finished presenting the midterm presentations. There was an experiment on ooblic, which we make a mixture and we are able to see the outcomes. Carrie and I did an activity on taste buds, and i felt that went very well. There were also many other presentations, they were all pretty good. There was one on tornadoes, which i thought was very good. I really liked Nate and Ashley's experiment on how birds feathers get oil on their feathers, and how hard it is for them to get it off. It doesn't come, this would be really relevant to teach to middle schoolers.

October 28, 2008

I guess what i have to say about today was that is was not a very productive day, due to technical difficulties. Once we got started Madddy and Kenzie discussed their presentation. They did they presentation called Elephant Toothpaste. It dealt with add certain materials to dry yeast and we were able to make predictions and observe what happened when we mixed the materials togehter. Nate and Ashley had a really good topic. They discussed what happened when something like feathers touches oil and what it does when it touches water afterwards. This would be a goood experiement to do with middle schoolers. Ellie and Lourie had us make Oublic. Brittany, Brianna, and Andrea also discussed bottle rockets and the safety precautions needed to make and experiment with bottle rockets.

October 23, 2008

Today we just observed different kinds of lesson plans from our Colleagues. The first group did a presentation on Mixtures. They first asked a couple of assessment questions, to activate our back ground knowledge about mixtures. For example, what is a mixture and from the four which one is not a mixture. We also had to name our own mixtures. The group also had us make a jello mixture and observe what happened and what was going to happen. The second group did an activity on habitats and explained how we can make habitat boxes with our students, along with the different safety measures. Angie and Kelli did an experiment on teaching students the differences between sinking and floating. We also make predictions and created our own hypothesis's. Brooke and Megan did an experiment with mixing oil and water together. Do you they mix together. No, they don't and if you add a couple drops of food coloring you will see that the water and oil are still separated, but the food coloring goes straight to the water part of the mixture. Whitney and Danielle did their presentation for Kindergarteners on living and non living things. They had us look through different magazines and make a collage of the different things that are livign and which are not living. All of these activites will great to use in our future classroom, especially in our science labs.

October 21st, 2008

In today's lecture, we started off by asking questions. Dr. Ezrailson made a statement that it is important for our students to answer questions and understand the material, which i also believe to be very important. We also discussed upcoming projects, quizzes, and the reading guide which are due within the next week or so. As a class, we spent alot of time discussing the reading guide and the questions it asked. For example, what our opinions were of our scientific learning was in our elementary years and in our internship placements. The reading guide also discusses questions from the reading of chapters 5 and 6. To end the class we did an experiement called "The Leaping Egg;" we used a ping pong ball. We take a plastic (never glass) cup and place a small funnel inside the cup. Within the small funnel we place our ping pong ball and try blowing at it at different angles to see how far the ball would go and what was causing the ball to shoot in those different directions. We found out that the ball shoots out of the glass and funnel because of the exerted force we are placing on the ball. But what happens if we blow on it in different ways? If we blow on the near side of the cup the ball will shoot forward, but if you blow on the far side of the cup the ball will shoot back at us, because of the air current and pressure we force on the ball.

October 14th and October 16

In these two class days, we basically had work days for our Video Midterm project. Carrie Dunn and I are doing an activity with the class on taste buds. We will be experimenting with the different taste buds on the tongue, whether it be salty, bitter, sour, or sweet. Then we will also be showing a video on things not to do with your students during a science experiment. When the we are closing with our hands-on activity we will be having the class chose their favorite flavors and intergrating math into our lesson by building a class graph, called "Which Jelly Belly is on the Tip of your Tongue." On Oct. 16th we also discussed the Science Fair Judging Day, and the requirements needed for that day.

Cyber Bee October 9th

For Thursday assignment we were asked to look around the "Cyber Bee" website. I thought it was very interesting, I really liked the different cirriculum ideas. It also has alot of different activities on the interent, like treasure hunts. I tried it out for a little bit, and it was really intersting. I didn't really see anything directed towards science. This program would be so helpful when i start out my own classroom, it has some great activities, articles, how to's, and treasure hunts.

October 7th, 2008 and Mirror Image activity

In today's lecture we learned alot about safety and how we need to use it in our classrooms. If we do not use safety in our classrooms, it could potentially be very dangerous. We need to teach our students how to protect their clothing, eyes, and make sure we have directions placed within the classroom. It is very important for the students to know those safety percautions, they can easily learn them by signs in the classroom or safety quizzes. We as teachers should always be ALERT, we should also have an organized and disciplined classroom, and know that not every activity will work. We also did an activity today in class, it was called Mirror Image. To begin the activity you should have students turn to the mirror and try to write names, phrases, or shapes in the mirror image. Each student would be given a notecard and a mirror. First they would poke a hole in their notecard and put their pen or pencil in that hole. Without looking at what you are writing, you should be looking in the mirror and try to write something in the mirror image. It is extremely hard. After experimenting students san share their results as a small group.

October 2nd, 2008 and Plato's Allegory of the Cave

In today's discussion we started off with questions as always. We then started with a powerpoint on how children's mind's develop over time and how we can use this to teach of future students. We also discussed how should we know how one can recognize the knowledge that a child has. We should base lessons and theories on how children learn, and take into account their culture and hertitage. For our class activity, which went along with the movie we watched, we did Plato's Allegory of the Cave. In this activity each group was given four black boxes, with a mystery object inside of it. We all had to make assumptions on what we thought was in the box and what we thought it was like. We then wrote our assumptions doen on a piece of paper, and then correlated all of our answers together to get a couple solid assumptions about what we thought was in the "mystery boxes." Our group guessed that the four boxes held marbles in them, because of the way they rolled within the boxes. But we were also asked to predict and guess what else was inside, but what we didn't know was that there were little square objects attached to the box, kind of like an obstacle course or something. As a class we discussed our predictions and found out the answers.

NSTA Web Seminar

Since I was unable to attend the web seminar on the announced day, I am doing a post seminar assignment for Dr. Cathy Ezrailson. Through this presentation, I learned that stars are made up of about 80 percent of Hydrogen, about 30 percent of Helium, and about 2 percent of a variety of different types of metals. By looking at the models presented through out the presentation, we can see that stars are a hot and glowing balls of gas. We are also trying to find an equilibrium between gravity and energy. As the pressure if trying to force its way out, the gravity is trying to force its way in hence we are trying to discover a balance or a state of equilibrium. As Dr. Ezrailson said during the presentation, when we are thinking about how stars are formed, we should consider the mass of the initial gas, the temperature, and the speed. I learned that the life and death of a star is dependent on whether how much gas life they have and how quickly they use their gas through out their life span. There are also different ways to classify stars. We can classify stars by their temperature, composition, and brightness (low or high). If we were wondering how to figure out the energy we can receive from light, we could use a formula to find out a photons energy and frequency. The formula is E=hv, which is very confusing to me. I do not understand the scientific terms that allow me to go further into that formula. It would be interesting to see how the formula plays out and how I could incorporate it into my classroom, and teach my students about light energy and how we can get it from the stars. I also found it very interesting how planets form around the stars, this would also be an interesting topic of discussion for an elementary classroom. We could eventually have the students make their own solar system, and as we slowly build we can talk about the f ormations and other aspects of planets and stars.

September 30th, 2008

We had our class online today! For our online assignment, we were asked to answer questions from chapter (modules) 3 and 4. We were asked to share our ideas on how educators harness young children's shared base of understanding and skill to help them learn science, how misconceptions help children learn science, and a couple other questions about the scenarios that are placed in each module. Through these questions we learned that children are natural learners/scientists, and they are always ready to learn at that young of an age. They also have a rich knowledge of how the world works and using cause and effect. By using hands on experiments we can help put science into a different perspective and help them build those great connections. By learning from their misconceptions, students are able to use those a stepping stones. Those misconceptions can lead to one big idea and they can build off of their ideas and also make more connections. We also to analyze a couple of class experiements and how they were effective and what we would change about them. For this assignment we also got to put ourselves in the shoes of parents, and how we would like to be incorporated into our children's learning. From reading the chapters (modules) we can learn alot and can get a lot of great ideas to use in our classroom instruction.

September 25th, 2008

Today we were to have an Online Seminar, I was unable to attend because of a conflict.. I will be making this assignment up later.

September 23rd

Today in science class we measure the amount acidic acid was in different types of fruits (lemons, oranges, limes, and grapefruit), and different types of fruit juices (lime juice, white and pink grapfruit juice, and lemon juice). We found that when we added vinegar to baking soda there was a reaction between the two, it foamed and fizzed. When we added water to the baking soda, the water just absorbed the baking soda; the baking soda almost dissoved. We found that juice holds the most acidic acid, not the actual fruit. We labeled which fruit juices were the most acidic and fizzed the most, 1. lime juice, 2.vinegar, 3. white grapefruit juice, 4. pink grapefruit juice, and 5. orange juice. We tested the acidic amount with our reaction tubes and found results for this area as well.

September 18th's Class

Today in class we discussed nutritional meals and how we can benefit from eating healthier. We did an interactive technology activity, where we were able to make our own healthy meals. The program gave the amount of fat, protein, and carbohydrates in certain food items, and we had to make a healthy meal using the given food items. It was interesting to see how much fat content and carbs are in all of the foods that we all eat so much. In college it is so hard to eat healthy, when we are always in a hurry and just grab something that is quick and easy.

September 16th, 2008

In today's class, we took a couple of notes about content and processes. Content is observations, facts, and theories that students are expected to learn. Processes are scientific skills, that students are expected to master. We also made a safety game that we would be able to use in our own class room.

September 11th's Class

Today in class we talked about scientific knowledge and what it means to us. With out scientific knowledge we are wholely dependent on other's as experts. We also talked about the four reasons to teach science. Science is an expertise that can improve the quality of life, it provides a foundation for the development of language, and logic and it helps build problem solving skills. A new paradigm points toward a kind of science education that differs substantially from what occurs in most science classrooms today. We also talked about a couple of different sceintific terms, like hypothesis, scientific claims, and facts.

Ashley Sik

Hot Hands and Temperature Probe Response Time

Manager- Amanda
Recorder- Ashley
Reporter- Brandon
Equipment manager- Carrie

Hot Hands
In this activity we were asked to find room temperature (in Celsius), and then wrap our palms around the temperature probe. We each did this. Our results were as follows: Amanda- 33.8 C, Brandon- 28.6 C, Carrie- 30.1 C, and Ashley- 29.8 C. Our average rate of temperature was 30.575 degrees Celsius. Amanda's temperature was 3.7 degrees higher than Carrie. Amanda also had the hottest hands.

Temperature Probe Response Time:
In this activity we put a temperature probe in ice cold water (by adding ice cubes) and waited for 100 seconds, at a 100 seconds the temperature probe recorded the temperature at 41.2 degrees Fahrenheit. We were then asked to quick switch it over to hot water for 20 seconds. The temperature probe recorded the temperature after 20 seconds in the hot water at 94.8 degrees Fahrenheit. When we graphed our results we had a curve in our graph. We were also asked why time was plotted on the horizontal line and why temperature was on the vertical line. Time is plotted on the horizontal because it is our constant and temperature is our variable. Our last answer was 20 seconds.