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?

Attention Parents!

I would love for you to visit our classroom as a "guest blogger."  How would you like to come watch what is going on, take pictures, and summarize what you see for a blog post??

I strongly feel this is a great way for you to be involved.  You see and learn along with us, communicate to others, and potentially gain info to help your child at home.  Join us as we do science!

Please send me an e-mail or respond to this post if you're interested.  I want to make sure you're getting the most out of your experience and that there aren't 8 people arriving on the same day or that we aren't testing on that day.  Thanks!

Required Science Supplies for 2010-2011!

If you want to get a head start, the following supplies will be required from science students in my class this year:

·       2 composition Books (100 pages minimum, 1 for each semester)

·       colored pencils (set of 8)

·       calculator

Suggested:  pencil, at least 2 colors of pens, highlighter, bottle of white glue, ruler