Thanks to Miles for his inspiration (and perspiration), great sense of humor and patience....to Paul for his great teaching ideas, help and wonderful demos...to Tina for her great lectures and help and to all of you for sharing your great talents, experience and teaching ideas. It was truly a pleasure to get to know you. Have a great rest of the summer and school year and take care of yourselves!
Cathy
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Crystals/Polarizing, Thermometers, Calorimeters
We could differentiate between different types of crystal by the way they rotated plane or polarized light. It is interesting to see how cotton and wool have different degrees of color and uniformity (cotton versus silk versus wool). Could see a variety of shapes in crystals that didn't take a long time to grow and using the copper wire and silver nitrate would be good to show students how fast a crystal can grow. The thermometer lab gave a simple picture of temperature fluctuation (elementary) and gave high school students a variety of thermometers to construct with different efficiencies. The calorimeter lab showed the simple basics of converting food energy to heat energy.
Dawn and Barb
Dawn and Barb
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday Physics
I will second! other comments I read about Darwin's demonstration/explanation and suggestions by 2 other classmates for illustrating Newton's 2nd law and for the simple way to remember which class of levers a lever belongs to-whatever is successful for remembering/retaining concepts is important in any subject.
Because I will be working with an IA elementary school, I addressed high school standards-IA (in my Report I will address NE standards) in my comments for Monday, for in the comunity college setting where I work, the majority of students have been out of formal education for quite awhile. Physical science is close to senior high review. The lab was a great one for introduction to a mechanics and lever class--good reinforcement for basic equations and concepts, where a semester gives a "taste" of the five physical sciences, not near enough time to begin to master any of them!
Because I will be working with an IA elementary school, I addressed high school standards-IA (in my Report I will address NE standards) in my comments for Monday, for in the comunity college setting where I work, the majority of students have been out of formal education for quite awhile. Physical science is close to senior high review. The lab was a great one for introduction to a mechanics and lever class--good reinforcement for basic equations and concepts, where a semester gives a "taste" of the five physical sciences, not near enough time to begin to master any of them!
Monday Chem Labs
The IA standards addressed in these labs were the same for grades 10-12: Content Standard 1/Grade Level Indicator."students can understand and apply the processes and skills of scientific inquiry" and "analyze and interpret scientific information". Content Standard 3/Grade Level indicator. "Students can understand concepts and relationships in Earth/space sciences" and "make inferences and predictions fusing fundamental Earth/space concepts" and "analyze Earth/space investigations". Contnet Standard 4/Grade Level Indicator. "Students can understand concepts and relationships in physical sciences" and "make inferences and predictions using fundamental physical science concepts" and "analyze physical science investigations" and "analyze and evaluate the adequacy and accuracy of physical science information".
Content concepts addressed in the Egg Drop/Egg Removal: Water-change of state-molecular activity-; the Ideal Gas Law: linear relationship between temperature & pressure, inversely proportional relationship of pressure & volume; Henry's law( gas solubility in liquid) & the concentration of dissolved gas proportional to the partial pressure of that gas; acid - base reaction; gas production -evidence of chemical change; equlilbrium in chemical reaction.
Content concepts addressed in the Bell Jar Lab: pressure differences; Ideal Gas Law, where Pressure is proportional to Temperature and inversely proportional to Volume; Water boiling at lower (?in ours- ? room tmeperature?) as a result of lessening pressure; lessening of external pressure"lets" internal pressure "take charge" and marshmallow "expands" until external pressure returns to the system--when marshmallow "shrinks"-is crushed by that external pressure.
The wording was the same for Standard 2 (biology) as for Standards 3 and 4. One could add questions, discussion, discovery related to biology (ie, why do space traveler's need space suits?---research issues, of blood pressure, equilibrium between internal body pressure and external pressure, body temperature equilibrium...)
Content concepts addressed in the Egg Drop/Egg Removal: Water-change of state-molecular activity-; the Ideal Gas Law: linear relationship between temperature & pressure, inversely proportional relationship of pressure & volume; Henry's law( gas solubility in liquid) & the concentration of dissolved gas proportional to the partial pressure of that gas; acid - base reaction; gas production -evidence of chemical change; equlilbrium in chemical reaction.
Content concepts addressed in the Bell Jar Lab: pressure differences; Ideal Gas Law, where Pressure is proportional to Temperature and inversely proportional to Volume; Water boiling at lower (?in ours- ? room tmeperature?) as a result of lessening pressure; lessening of external pressure"lets" internal pressure "take charge" and marshmallow "expands" until external pressure returns to the system--when marshmallow "shrinks"-is crushed by that external pressure.
The wording was the same for Standard 2 (biology) as for Standards 3 and 4. One could add questions, discussion, discovery related to biology (ie, why do space traveler's need space suits?---research issues, of blood pressure, equilibrium between internal body pressure and external pressure, body temperature equilibrium...)
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, July 9th
Well, the morning didn't start out very good. A storm went through Scotland this morning doing damage to just about every house in town. I had damage to my camper and my siding, but at least no windows were busted out. (A lot of people did have windows taken out.)
The good news is that once we made it to class, we did a very good activity Thursday morning. The predator-prey lab was a good lab. As I said in my blog Wednesday, I don't teach any life scinece classes, but I may be able to actually use this activity in some of my math classes. In Pre-Calculus, we talk about exponential growth and decay. During that time, we also talk a little bit about how exponential growth and decay pertain to populations of organisms.
The predator prey lab might be a good activity for me to do, when we begin talking about populations of organisms. I think that the kids would have a lot of fun with it.
The lab over Beer's Law that we did in the afternoon was interesting also. I'm not so sure that this is something that I can use in my classes, but I definately learned a lot about how concentration effects reaction rates.
The good news is that once we made it to class, we did a very good activity Thursday morning. The predator-prey lab was a good lab. As I said in my blog Wednesday, I don't teach any life scinece classes, but I may be able to actually use this activity in some of my math classes. In Pre-Calculus, we talk about exponential growth and decay. During that time, we also talk a little bit about how exponential growth and decay pertain to populations of organisms.
The predator prey lab might be a good activity for me to do, when we begin talking about populations of organisms. I think that the kids would have a lot of fun with it.
The lab over Beer's Law that we did in the afternoon was interesting also. I'm not so sure that this is something that I can use in my classes, but I definately learned a lot about how concentration effects reaction rates.
Thursday's Activities
I liked the predator-prey simulation model. It allowed students to explore and discover relationships. It also, shows the students the importance of changing only one variable at a time and taking good notes. After changing different variable and recording data students well be able to make connections between the different variables. I enjoyed the predator-prey lab. It is a lab that gets the students up and moving. The crystal violet lab was also fun. I haven't used a spec 20 in quite awhile. This lab showed great mathematical relationships.
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