Science Labs

On Tuesday 28th, we started to learn from our teachers how they teach. For the first session, they chose some demonstrations they use with their students:

• Coke density: very useful. It is very difficult for them to understand the relation between mass and volume, even when they know examples of objects which are more dense than others. Advantage: you can reward a student with a coke if he or she answer a question correctly. I found also the video very accurate to make them realised about what they eat or drink, and how important is to have a balanced diet.Lab Mistery Solution
• You can also put together some liquids into a bottle such as alcohol, oil, water and golden syrup to see the layers depending on their density.
• Cheese candles: with this lab we could teach them to notice the difference between observations and inferences. 
• Bess Beetle Warm Up Question: If the beetle could talk, I'm sure he would disagree, but it's a good lab for students. In order to find what percentage of their body mass a Bess Beetle can pull, we added some weights to a clip tied to a string tied to the mid section of the poor Beetle. What they can learn from this lab is that sometimes they are able to check the information they are told.

On Wednesday 29th we continued with the following labs:

• Egg Bungee Jump: In this lab we should predict how many rubber bands will it take to successfully complete a Bungee jump from the ceiling of the classroom. The students will need to apply their ideas about potential and kinetics energy and how they are related. Furthermore, they will need to apply the scientific methodology to collect the data.

• Lab Mistery Solution: Working in pairs, we should identify which letters of unknown substances matched with which numbers. The most interesting learning in this is to be aware of how important communication is in the field of science. We must communicate our results to our partner in the better way in order to reach solution for a problem. In addition, they will learn that in investigation the individual work is as essential as the collective work.

Interactive simulations in Physics and Chemistry

Chemistry is a practical science but also with a lot of abstract concepts which students find hard to understand, such as atomic structure, bond formation, isotopes, gas properties, photoelectric effect, etc...
For this reason, interactive programs are very useful to explain these concepts, so students can see it in a very attractive way.


All of the simulations are very useful, but if I had to choose some of them, this would be my selection:

• Build a molecule: Starting from atoms, you can see how many molecules you can build, and you can see them in 3D! It is good, because blackboards only have 2D. It's very accurate for students of third course at Secondary School as a first approach to the concept of molecule and its structure http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/build-a-molecule

• Atomic interactions: Good way to explain the graphic that shows the variation of potential energy with the distances between atoms. http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/atomic-interactions
• Isotopes and Atomic Equations: To catch the idea of isotopes as different atoms of the same element you can use this simulation in which you'll see how many protons, electrons and neutrons a the atoms can have. http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/isotopes-and-atomic-mass
• Balancing chemical reactions: After the explanation of the Law of Conservation of Mass, students should know how to apply it to balance a chemical reaction. Some of them find it difficult because they don't catch the relation between the atomic mass and the number of atoms both sides of the equation. http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/balancing-chemical-equations

June 28th What do we want out of our students?

What I want out from my students over a school year could be summarized in three points:

• to have the curiosity to think about the reason WHY fenomenons that surround us in our daily lives happen, and how they can predict them,
• to see the connection that Physics and Chemistry have with the problems of the real world, not only causing them but also as a way to solve them, and
• to be able to learn from their environment by using their capabilities with autonomy and in a critical way

Hard, but not impossible.

June 28th CLASS JOURNAL

We all are teachers, but now we are more than that: we are students learning new skills, so we can see how important is to be in contact with our teachers in order to take advantage of the entire experience.
Furthermore, we are realising how our students need to communicate with us by using new technologies, and updated tools with more applications than the traditional ones.
Their demands are encouraging us to look forward a more motivating way of teaching. It is a matter of time to see the results, but I am sure that they worths the effort.