Where are They Now?

The United States was once a great powerhouse on the global stage.  No one dared question our authority, the reach of our arms, or the intelligence of our scientists.  That is until Russia entered the ring.  We eyed the Soviet Union with cold distrust and puffed out our chest as we each tried to assert our dominance over each other.  The world held its collective breath in anticipation.

So, where are they now?  Who won?  We look at these two "powerhouses" today, and it's almost like looking at those stereotypical "football captain" and "homecoming queen" from high school.  They peaked early, and now sit around telling the story of their glory days to anyone who happens by.  Everyone knows they used to be great, but the rest of the world moved forward, leaving them in the past with their outdated achievements and grudges.*

The United States seems to be living in a reverie where we are at the top of the pack.  We are the latest and the greatest, the best and the brightest.  While this was true decades ago, we tend to forget what got us there.  Our industrial/manufacturing focus built a strong foundation upon which we grew, but it was Sputnik that launched our country to reach for more.  It was as if the entire country awoke one day and decided that we could not be second place.  Support, both financial and educational, poured into the collective goal that we reach the moon first.  Everyone worked together to achieve.

While we have been reveling in our past achievements and living off of old accomplishments, China and Taiwan have left us locked in a global pissing contest with everyone else in the world.  Like the "band geek" no one looked at twice, our two Asian counterparts grew up and left everyone thinking, "Were did they come from?"* China and Taiwan have decided collaboration is the way innovation and are driving forward the technology we are consuming. (Friedman, 2010)  Instead of using this as motivation, the U.S. is looking every which way but forward.  Why are we not using this as our Sputnik and making another collective goal to push our sciences forward?  Why are we not entering into partnerships with other countries in order to live those 21st Century skills that science teachers are struggling to teach students in order to keep up in a 21st century world?  If STEM is now, why isn't the country more concerned with producing global citizens right here instead of importing them to fill our open positions? 

Now is the time to commit to our students and the future of our country.  We need to look at the accomplishments of our past and use them to move ourselves forward.  All levels of government need to recognize the value of STEM and the benefit for us all.  No one wants to be the "has been" when we talk about where everyone is now.  We should be the bar everyone else is trying to reach.

References:

Friedman, T. L. (2010). What's Our Sputnik?. The New York Times. p. 8.

*It is not my intention to offend anyone. I am using stereotypes to enhance my writing.  I was a band geek.

Modeling the Unseen

This past week, I had my students working through the Theory of Plate Tectonics.  I have always had difficulty getting students to understand the different plate boundaries and the land features created by the movements.  This year, I decided to try modeling those plate boundaries instead of just showing pictures or animations.

Students were given 6 graham crackers and cake icing.  They spread a thin layer of the icing on a sheet of waxed paper, then placed the crackers on top of the icing.  Depending on the directions of movement, different landforms were created, and students recorded their observations and predictions.  Afterwards, we visited http://www.sepuplhs.org/middle/iaes/students/simulations/SEPUP_Plate_simulation.swf in order to determine if the predictions were correct and discuss some of the reasons for what we saw in the demonstration.

My students and I had a great time with this activity!  I feel like it was as beneficial as it was enjoyable, so there isn't much more I could ask for in a lesson.  That isn't to say that there weren't things I would like to change next time.  Though I did ask questions throughout the lesson, I want to incorporate more opportunities for the students to self-assess.  I think discovery and self-correction are valuable teachers, and I like for my role to be more of a facilitator.  Either way, I think everything went well, and my students are already excited for the next unit.

Natural Disaster Awareness

I teach in an interesting school with a very diverse population.  We have students who live in public housing sitting beside students who's parent make six figures each year.  Whenever we would have fundraisers or money collections, our less fortunate students always seem to be at a disadvantage as they are unable to fully participate; however, this was not the case last year.  We had several student organizations who worked individually and cooperatively to provide relief for the Japanese disaster.  Many of our economically disadvantaged students were able to take a more active role in the fundraising efforts and were thrilled that they could contribute in a non-monetary way.  It was truly amazing to watch the students take the reins and put forth so much effort to help others.

I think that it is important for students to develop empathy for others, and I think that showing them eyewitness accounts of disasters could be one way.  I do not mean that they see real-time footage but interviews with survivors or footage of the damage.  I want my students to understand that there are many different groups and ways that can be affected by natural disasters.  I love animals, and they are an often forgotten group when natural disasters strike.  While this is my own passion, I hope that my enthusiasm will help my students find their own.

Ask a Scientist

I don’t visit my own blog very often, so I did not notice until today that this post was not up.  Apparently, I hit the preview button instead of the publish button.

I did not receive a response from the website.  While I did not expect to, I was hoping that maybe my question would be attention-grabbing.  Interestingly enough, I learned many of the answers to my questions through the responses to my own discussion post and those of others.  I still went to a few websites just to verify the information and found some great information on the American Cancer Society website.  Not only did it verify what my colleagues had already told me, but it also provided more information I had not considered.  Tumor suppressor genes keep cell division under control, and when these do not work properly, tumors can develop.  Reading through this information and gathering more information on my own probably made a bigger impact than just having someone provide the answer for me.

American Cancer Society.  (2009).  Oncogenes, Tumor Suppressor Genes, and Cancer.  Retrieved from http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/geneticsandcancer/oncogenesandtumorsuppressorgenes/oncogenes-tumor-suppressor-genes-and-cancer-mutations-and-cancer

Course Project Programs

The first presentation tool I explored was My Brain Shark.  The description on the website states “With Brainshark’s cloud-based solution, you can easily transform static content such as PowerPoint® documents into voice-enriched online and mobile video presentations that can be accessed anytime, on-demand...and tracked so you can measure the effectiveness of your communications.”  Thus far, I have found the program to be extremely user-friendly with great tutorials and step-by-step directions.  Ironically, this is the same program that my district uses for training such as sexual harassment and blood-borne pathogens.  I think that this would be an excellent tool for the Course Project seeing as you can upload any types of document, video, picture, or presentation.  The voice-over tool helps make the presentation more dynamic without bombarding the audience with too much text like you may encounter in a PowerPoint presentation.  The best part of this program is that it makes your presentation accessible to any device (iphone, ipad, smart phones, MAC OS, or Microsoft OS).

The other tool I experimented with is called Ahead.  I found it to be almost identical to Prezi as both are non-linear maps of information.  While I like the Ahead software for its ease of use, it is a Flash-based program which means that it will not play on Apple devices.  Considering most of us are mobile and so many use Apple products, this could be a problem.  Other than that, I think that this would be a good tool for the Course Project.  Personally, I do not think that I will use it as I am a linear thinker.  It is difficult for me to use and be comfortable with working on so many tangents.  If you are a person who thinks in different directions, Ahead would probably work well for you.

http://www.brainshark.com/

http://ahead.com/#view/lilaspaces/main/welcome?scene=HOME

Learning Light and the Electromagnetic Spectrum

There are many different topics to be covered under the “big idea” of light, so I chose to narrow it down to light and the electromagnetic spectrum.  There are many websites out there, but the following sites proved the most beneficial:

http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/index.html

                This website is created and maintained by NASA.  It contains numerous links to each part of the electromagnetic spectrum and does a terrific job explaining how they are all related.  I especially like the fact that the site is student-friendly and offers an array of media presentations that accommodate all learning styles.

http://www.brainpop.com/science/energy/electromagneticspectrum/preview.weml

                This website requires a subscription, but I feel like it is well worth the fee.  These 4-6 minute videos are engaging yet informative and are an excellent way to introduce a topic.

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/eoc/special_topics/teach/sp_climate_change/p_emspectrum_interactive.html

                This site allows students to manipulate the spectrum while showing the frequency of the wave, the energy, and facts about each type.  There are also discussion questions at the end that can be used to prompt dialogue among the students.

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.mfw.spectrum/

                I like this site due to the fact that it is extremely user-friendly.  It is similar to the previous link but goes into more detail with more pictures and examples.

I believe that these sites can help develop my students into scientific literate citizens.  Not only are they using technology to access these topics, but also communicating their findings to peers and adults.  They will be exposed to charts and graphs which have to be correctly interpreted in order to engage in the discussion questions.  Students will also have to be self-autonomous as they explore each site and come across new ideas or topics.

As an activity, I would like to incorporate all of these websites into a webquest activity for the students.  I think that there is only so much a student can learn while watching me manipulate the software in front of the group.  If they are given time, students will be able to work at individual paces thus spending more time on areas of difficulty and extending the more familiar areas.

One of my biggest challenges will be securing computers for the length of time needed.  I would like for each student to have the opportunity to work alone but confer with their lab table; however, I may have to settle for the students working in pairs.  This may not turn out to be an issue, as some students are more comfortable asking questions when they are working with someone else.  Either way, I want to make sure that I have access to the computer lab or the laptops for as much time as possible, seeing as not all of my students have internet access.  

Heat Transfer

This week our challenge was to determine the best insulator.  I chose cling wrap, aluminum foil, a wool hat, and newspaper to test this question.  I hypothesized that the wool hat would be the best insulator while the cling wrap would be the worst.  Having tested materials with my students, I knew that wool should be the best insulator due to its many air pockets, while something with more compacted molecules would transfer heat faster.  (Tillery, Enger, & Ross, 2008)  I thought that the cling wrap would be the worst because it had been in my previous experiments, and newspaper is an insulator used by homeless people. 

Based on Tillery, Enger, and Ross (2008), the materials encouraged and discouraged different types of heat transfer.  All of the materials inhibited radiation to some extent, as radiation is the transfer of heat energy across space.  The materials covered the top of the water that is exposed to the air; therefore, some heat energy is trapped as it does not have an unobstructed path.  All of the mugs exhibited conduction as well as convection seeing as the water transferred heat energy to the mug through touch and fluid.

If I were to conduct this experiment again, there are several other materials I would like to test.  Paper towels, dish towels, or even ceramic covers would be interesting to use.  I think that the ceramic cover would probably lose the most heat energy due to the compact nature of the molecules.  The dish towel would most likely retain the most heat energy because of the air pockets and spaces in the material, thus making it more difficult for the energy to transfer throughout the towel.

Testing other materials could be interesting.  I think that hot dogs and spaghetti would probably cool faster depending on where you take the temperature reading.  The middle of the material will be able to retain the heat energy the longest, but they are both solid materials.  Because they are solids, the closeness of the molecules would allow heat energy to transfer much more easily than through a fluid or a gas.

Earlier this year, my students took part in a heat transfer unit where they had to test the insulating abilities of a variety of materials in order to determine which to use for their penguin igloo.  The goal of the inquiry exercise was to keep their ice cube penguin from melting.  The students loved it, and because it was a 5E lesson, we were able to teach the methods of heat transfer in a way that connected it to life.  We talked about why the upper levels of a house are always warmer and how to tell if your house is adequately insulated.  The students loved it and were eager to put their new knowledge into practice.

Tillery B.W, Enger E.D., & Ross F.C. (2008). Integrated Science 4th edition. United States of America: The McGraw-Hill Companies.