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.