Period 4-Movie P

Period 4-Movie O

Period 6-Movie N

Period 6-Movie M

Period 5-Movie L

Period 5-Movie K

Period 3-Movie J

Period 5-Movie I

Period 3-Movie H

Period 5-Movie G

Period 3-Movie F

Period 4-Movie E

Period 3-Video D

Period 1-Video B

Period 1-Video A

Science Survey

Please complete the science survey!

https://docs.google.com/a/fifeschools.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFRzc1BPTVZzQjlPdVg5dC1uRlpUT2c6MQ

Testing the Reliability of Horoscopes

After conducting the horoscope lab in class, please make a post with your partner addressing the following questions:

1) What idea(s) do you have about how else to test the reliability of horoscopes in predicting behavior?  What are the good features of your design?
2) Evaluate the activity we did in class to test the reliability of horoscopes.  How was it a good test?  How could it be improved?

Be sure to log into your Google account before posting, and then sign the post with your name, your partner's name, and your class period.

Why is Science Important?

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden planetarium and the host of the new Cosmos series.  He spoke in this little 2-3 minute blurb about why everyone needs a basic understanding of science (science literacy).

Watch the video and tell me:  what are some other examples of situations in life where people might try to "pull one over on you" where an understanding of science and questioning would be helpful.  The example given in the video is of someone telling you that crystals will heal certain diseases.

Thoughts on Energy-Day One

So, to kick off the year, and our mini-unit introduction to energy and forces, students watched the "Honda COG" video, selected one portion of it, and diagrammed out the "energy story" of that portion.  Students were asked to list types of energy, describe what was happening to the energy, and where the energy was.

Here is the video:

And here are some sample whiteboards with the task students were asked to do:

We then discussed and acknowledged that students already had a pretty intuitive understanding of energy already.  Then, students were asked to come up with a definition for energy.  These are some sample definitions:

This idea courtesy of the Energy Project at SPU!

Supplies!

It's almost time for a welcome back!  Just so you know, the following materials will be required for your science class this year:

• 2 composition books (100 pages each, one for each semester, please buy them both now!  I will keep your second one for you)
• set of colored pencils (8 colors is plenty)
• calculator (on a cell phone is acceptable).

I will be checking for these materials on Tuesday, September 6th.  Let me know if you have questions or problems with this list!  

There are suggested supplies that you might find helpful to have, but are not required:

• a ruler
• post-it notes
• a highlighter
• A bright color of pen to contrast with the pen or pencil you normally use
• tape or a small bottle of white glue

Students this year will also have Google accounts set up through the school.  If you have a smart phone, you can access Google docs through this with free apps.  This is completely optional, but a nice feature, if you have a smart phone.

Student Questions about Astronomy with Wallwisher

Wednesday, we began our unit on astronomy, and after a picture sort of 24 objects in space, students generated lists of questions and picked some of their better ones to post on Wallwisher. I organized them and we will come back and visit these walls throughout the unit.

Period 1: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/akerscienceastronomy
Period 2: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/akerscienceastro2
Period 4: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/akersciastro4
Period 5: http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/akersciastro5

Bridge Pictures and Results!

We had great fun building pasta bridges to learn about forces.  Look at the pictures here:


Also check out the bridge project page with links and a spreadsheet of this year's results! https://sites.google.com/a/fifeschools.com/aker-sci/links/motion/newton-s-laws-forces/spaghetti-bridge-project

Student Feedback

Students were asked to answer four questions on a scale of 1-10 concerning their level of engagement and success in science so far this year.  These are the tabulated results of those questions

I will debrief these results with students on Monday, particularly focusing on what students can do to improve their grades

Science Fair Thoughts

The science fair is coming up at the end of January.  What are 2 or 3 thoughts you have for a project?  Or do you have one idea narrowed down?  Post your idea or respond to someone else's.  If you post your own idea, ask others for input about how to test.  If responding to an idea, give them ideas about how to test.

What do you think of this quote?

Do you agree or disagree?  Explain!

Science is wonderfully equipped to answer the question "How?" but it gets terribly confused when you ask the question "Why?"  --Erwin Chargaff

Be sure to sign your post with your full name and period:  "John Doe, Period 1"

Favorite science experiment or activity last year

Hey physical science students!  Tell me about your favorite science experiment or activity last year.  Include in your reply:

The activity
A description of the activity
What you liked about it

Be sure to sign your post with your full name and period:  "John Doe, Period 1"

Composition Book Set up

On Tuesday, students set up their composition books


The first few pages looked like this, and we reinforced the cover with packing tape.

Our first content lab looked like this.  Note the page numbers and dates in the corners.  Also, the lab has been color coded for vocabulary already known and not known.  Students answer post-lab questions and leave space for corrections (red in the last picture).

The last page and cover in the composition book.

Student Reflections on the "What is Science" Lab

Students were asked to select one of the stations from our What is Science Lab and discuss how the station related to science or how science works.  These were some of the reflections:


Jennifer talked about the station in which students were asked to build the tallest card house or the card house with the most cards:

Leleai & Jin talked about the check activity in which students were to make up a story given 5 fake checks:

Fernando and Tyler talked about the Drops on Penny Lab where students got varying results and had to agree upon a procedure to see if they could get more consistent results:

Opening Lab

Students began rotating through an 8-station lab about the nature of science.

These students tried to figure out what building card houses had to do with science.  The parameters were to either use the most cards or to build the tallest house.  No other rules were given.

These students were evaluating the minimum number of tests needed to prove or disprove a hypothesis (left), and trying to determine how fortune teller fish worked (right).

Link (PDF): What is Science Lab

First Day of School Survey Activity

So today, to get a sense of what students thought about the nature of science, we did a short survey and discussion with the ActivExpression devices.  Here is an example of just one question we discussed, and the results from 4 class periods.










What is an Activexpression?