Tuesday, 12/2/08

Today in class, my partner and I completed our final bell ringer project. We are going to do a Bell Ringer project using Diet Coke and Mentos Mints. We are going to take the class outside and drop the mints into a two liter bottle of Diet Coke and observe what happens. Then, we will take the class back inside and they will be put into group and we will hand out 4 ounce plastic cups to each group and sprite. Then, we will hand out Mentos Mints to each group and they will drop them into the sprite. They will be able to observe first hand what they observed outside using the Diet Coke. We will have the students write simiarlities and differences between the two projects. This would be an exciting lesson plan to use in the classroom because the students would be to watch the experiment and then they would get to do the experiement! :)

Tuesday, NOV 25

Today in class we finished going over the study guide and answered any questions that we sill had. My partner and I talked about how we were going to work on our final project. We also did an experiment working with sound vibrations. We took a tunning fork and hit it on a wooden block. Then we put the tunning fork up to various objects to see how the pitch varied. It was interesting to see how it changes and this would be a fun activity to use in the classroom. Students could get very creative and think of different ways to see the different sounds each object creates.

Thursday, NOV 20

In class today my partner and I picked out topic for our final project. We research on the internet and found that when you put mentos in a diet coke bottle, it makes the diet coke explode into the air. We are going to do a lesson plan on why that happens when the mentos are put into the diet coke. Also, in class today, we focused on Chapter 9 on our reading guide and went over a few questions. It was a great chance to ask questions and get feedback. It was interesting to see the demonstrations with the balloons of positive and negative electrons and how they change.

Online Simulations

We did not have face to face class on Tuesday, November 18. Instead, we were asked to look at and engage in online simluations about electricity and magnets. I thought the simulations were very interesting because there were so many different ones to explore in. When teaching these concepts to students in the classroom, interactive simulations would be a great way to engage students in what they are learning. Some students will not be able to grasp and understand the concepts in science but these simulations could help those students relate science material to real life sitations and be able to interact with what they are learning. Very cool.

Thursday, NOV 13

We did not have class on Tuesday, November 11, because it was Vertern's day holiday. Class was pretty fun today minus our technical difficulties. We were measuing temperatures of water that had different types of insulators around them. On one glass bottle, we put warm water in it and measured the temperature... In a similar glass bottle, we put warm water in it and put a wool sock around it and measured the temperature. A few minutes later, we checked the temperature as well and figured out which bottle had the warmest temperature to determine if a wool sock is a good insulator or not. Then, we used a cotton sock and a wet cotten sock around the glass bottles with warm water. It was interesting to see which socks kept the temperature the warmest and which ones did not. I can see how this experiment would be a good learning tool to use in the classroom because students are visibly able to see the different in different insulators and which ones are the best.

Thursday, NOV 6

Class was very informative today. We went over the study guide and we were able to answer questions and ask questions to prepare for the quiz. After we were done going over our study guide, we did an experiement about insulators; we put warm water into two bottles, they can be plastic or glass. Around one bottle, we put a sock and the other one we didn't put anything around it. We had two temperature thermators to test which one would keep the water warmer the longest. We were unable to finish this project because we ran out of time. I will be looking forward to doing this project in the future. I think something like this could be fun to use in a classroom because students are able to see the difference between temperatures and the relation to what is placed around them.

Tuesday, NOV 4

Today in class, we finished our mid-term presentations. There were two more groups to go. The first group had a lesson plan on a mystery box, I think this activity could be a lot of fun for smaller grades because they could find it interesting about the mystery part about it. I could see how this would be fun to use in the classroom. Also, we found out that the lesson plans will be available to all of us on the internet and that will be very nice becuase it will be nice to have a large amount of lesson plans for science when we start teaching. We also started going over the reading guide and I always find this to be helpful!!!