The Egg Lab

This week my students participated in an inquiry lesson that was used to teach them about osmosis and diffusion. The students used the egg as a model of an animal cell. It started by having the students use vinegar to dissolve the egg shell. Then the students put the egg in a variety of liquids including syrup and water (they got to choose the final liquid) in order to see what happened. The egg changes drastically during the experiment. It is awesome as the teacher to get to see how excited and engaged they are in their learning. The students come into class eager to see what has happened. They ask great questions and stay very focused and involved. They do a good job of using the class discussion to figure out what is happening to the egg. They have a harder time applying that to an animal cell. They need guidance in order to figure out what would happen in a real cell. Overall I think that this is a great experience for all of my students!

Below is a link to some samples of student work as well as a copy of the rubric that i use.
http://aloyal.decatur.dms.schoolfusion.us/modules/locker/files/group_files.phtml?parent=11215972&gid=430826&sessionid=73d9be6508fcfbd8e30663b6d07b385a

Melting Icebergs Experiment

      Below are my response to the last question of the activity.  Overall I like this activity a lot and i didn't think that I was going to. Upon first reading, I thought this was going to be a mess and could not understand why we would do something so impractical. Upon further review, I came to realize that this activity would be something that addressed many misconceptions with students and forces them to think beyond their current understandings. I think that this might be something that i try with my students as we are starting the earth science unit. I liked that it pulled in a current controversial topic as well as forced me to think about a problem in more then one way. I would love to hear what you thought of the experience as well as how you think the students would respond!

9.      Extended Questions

a.       What happens if the global ice caps melt?

Based on what I know if the global ice caps melt then there is going to be a large increase in the amount of water that is part of the oceans. I think that the probability of the global ice caps melting completely is low. I believe that the earth cycles through temperature and weather phenomena’s and that we are more aware now because of the increase in technology and the ability to track weather systems and global climate changes. I do think that if the polar ice caps were to melt completely then many steps would need to be in place to prevent catastrophe and also to harness the valuable amount of fresh water that would come available.

b.      What other questions do you have about this science inquiry experiment?

Do the students have enough knowledge to take a task like this and investigate it in order to lead to confirmation inquiry?

Would the students have the ability to reason out what they are seeing to make sense of it?

How do you get the students to ask the questions that lead to changes in hypothesizes and then an understanding of the observations?

Could this be done in a class period in order to provide the students with the ability to make the observation necessary, and then to apply those observations to change thinking?

STEM Lesson Plan

We had to make a lesson plan for the application this week and I found it to be frustrating. I think that I use a lot of STEM features already but didn't see how to really include that on the lesson plan form. Plus, I really think that form is hard to use. It isn't intuitive to me and I often get frustrated. I do like the thought process that it forces you to go through to make sure that you cover all of your bases and think about all of your kids. I am a big believer in project based learning, and think that PBL and STEM go hand in hand. I think that the more science exposure we can get our students the better off they will be and that by using techniques like STEM and PBL we will see an increase in science awareness and interst among our students.

I had heard of the 5E approach before. It is not the thought process that I normally use when planning lessons. It is not a process that I am a big believer in. I think that lesson planning is as different as the teacher is and I am very blessed to teach in a district that believes in that as well. I will attach a link to the form that I have started using (if I can figure out how to) since I started using PBL. It has proven very useful to me!

http://www.bie.org/tools/useful_stuff/pbl_handbook_project_planning_form/

I had previously taught the unit that I used for this weeks assignment. I was needing to reflect on the process and this assignment allowed me to reflect. I am interested to see how things are going to progress and change as we get more into this class.

My first post

I am new to this kind of thing so I would appreciate any feedback you have to give. I am hoping to learn how to make this a valuable tool I can use in my classroom.