Class 10/30/08

In today's class, the rest of the class presented their lesson plans. My group presented our lesson plan today and I think we did a good job. The other groups also did great. I learned a lot through everyone's lesson plans and I now have many good ideas for science lesson plans for my classroom. I also now understand how important safety is, especially in an elementary classroom. You have to be very specific with your students in what they can and can not do, because it is your responsibility to keep them safe during each experiment.

Class 10/28/08

In today's class, we started presenting our lesson plans to the class. We got through about four experiments, and I found them all to be very interesting and grade-level appropriate. My group has gotten together a couple of times to work on our experiment out of class. I think we are well prepared for our presentation on thursday. I am happy we did these lesson projects instead of a midterm test because it is more beneficial, we learn more, and we take away many experiments we can do with our students some day!

Class 10/23/08

In today's class, we covered density, pressure, and force. Dr. E gave an example of airplane wings. She said that velocity above the wings is slower and velocity underneath the wings is higher. We also talked alot about density today. Density= mass/volume. Dr. E gave a great example of density by describing clay. If you break a little piece of clay off a big block of clay, it is still the same density, it just has less volume. We also learned that lead is one of the most dense substances. Next, We did a mini-lab to find out how to put the most pressure on a sheet of paper using your body. Our group found out that if you stand on one leg on your tip-toes, you will apply the most pressure to the sheet of paper (16.129 lbs of presure per square inch). A practical example of pressure is massage therapy. If a massage therapist uses her whole hand on your back, it will not apply as much pressure as if she were to use her elbow or her thumbs. Overall, I learned alot about pressure and density in today class session.

Class 10/21/08

The first topic of today's class was buoyancy effects. We watched a simulation that had a weight hanging from a scale. Below that was a beaker of water on a scale. The weight hanging from the scale weighed 10 grams, and the beaker of water on the scale weighed 200 grams. We lowered the weight into the beaker of water. As the weight lowered into the water, the scale holding the weight got less, and the scale holding the beaker weighed more. This is due to the amount of water that was being displaced as the weight went into the beaker. Finally, the weight sunk to the bottom of the beaker and the scale on top held no weight, but the scale holding the beaker weighed 210 grams. This was a very interesting simulation.
Then we did a short lab about force. We put a ping pong ball in a class with a funnel. We blew on the opposite end of the funnel from us and the egg jumped into the cup that was right next to it. We determined that the egg jumped out of the first glass because of the air pressure we excerted upon it. The air travels underneath the egg causing it to pop up and jump into the other glass. We determined that you cannot place the glasses very far apart for the ping pong ball to jump into it. The farther apart the glasses, the harder you have to blow. We also determined that if you blow on the near side of the egg, the egg pops up and down but doesnt switch cups. This is because the force is at equilibrium. In conclusion, the force is in direct proportion to the length.
After the lab, our groups got together to finish outlining our midterm projects. Our group is meeting later on this week to test our project.

Class: 10/16/08

In today's class we covered the guidelines for our midterm project. We also used the class period to figure out what we wanted our lesson to be. We were required to outline our lesson plan that we will be teaching for the midterm project. I am in a group with Jessica Anderson and Dani Balahmann. We chose to do a 4th grade project about conductors and insulators. We are using styrofoam cups, soup cans, plastic cups, and dry ice. We will be placing small amounts of dry ice in each container. We will wait for approximately 5 minutes and then observe how much melting happened in each cup. The cup with the most melting will be the best conductor (the metal soup can). The cup with the least melting will be the best insulator (the styrofoam cup). We will also be focusing on the saftey precautions we will have to take because we will be working with dry ice and the sharp edges of a soup can. I am excited about this project because it will be much more fun and informative than taking a midterm exam.

Class 10/14/08

In class today, we went over the midterm project again. We were informed that on Thursday we will be having a "work day," where we can work with our partners to develop an outline of our project idea. I think the midterm project will be fun and very beneficial. After the presentations, we will have plenty of lesson plans to take with us as we continue throughout or teaching careers. After discussing the midterm project, we finished going over the reading guide for chapters 3, 4, and 5. This is also helpful because then we know if we have the write answers for when we take the quiz. I just finished the quiz and thought that the reading guide helped to some extent. I think the book is more helpful when taking the quiz; however, the reading guide has questions similar to that on the quiz, they are just worded differently.

Kepler's Laws: Simulation

Today we did not have our Physical Science class. Instead, we were required to play around with a simulation about Kepler's Laws. Kepler's Laws descirbe the motion of planets in the solar system. Kepler's astronomical laws include:
The first law says:"The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the sun at one of the foci."
The second law says:"A line joining a planet and the sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time."
The third law says: "The squares of the orbital periods of planets are directly proportional to the cubes of the axes of the orbits. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion

I found the Kepler simulation very hard to understand. Reading this information on wikipedia helped me to somewhat understand what was going on. The simulation shows you how the planets orbit the sun. Overall I was very confused and didn't understand the simulation! Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks!

Class 10/7/08

Today in class we covered the midterm project. I think it should be a good experience for everyone because we will get a feel for what it is like to teach a lesson. It will also help us think about coordinating a lesson plan to an appropriate grade level. I think it is great that we are supposed to teach about safety precautions, because that is very important when it comes to science and labs. We also went over our reading guides for chapters 3,4 and 5. I had a couple of questions that I didn't get, but we will finish going over the guide on Tuesday next week before the quiz. It was helpful to go over the questions just to make sure we have the right answers, so that we do well on the quiz.

Class 10/2/08

Today was our first day back in class for about a week. After answering more D2L questions, we discussed projectile motion. Dr. E showed us a cannon simulation from the internet. We shot the cannon at a 90 degree angle, only to find that the cannon shot straight up and came back down due to the forces of gravity. Then we shot the cannon at a 75 degree angle. Its path was in the shape of a parabola (parabolic path). Dr. E explained that the virtical direction is by acceleration due to gravity. The horizontal direction of motion is constant. Next, we tested a 45 degree angle, only to find that this shoots the cannon ball the farthest distance in the x direction (horizontally). After the simulation, we made paper airplanes in order to find out which design had the longest hang time. Our group found that the flatter the airplane was, the longer the hang time. Our airplane was pretty flat, and it seemed to float in the air. Our other designs, that were not as flat, seemed to take a nose dive as soon as they took off. Overall, class today was a good learning experience, althought I did not understand the inverse square law we talked about at the begining of class.