Meteorology

"Do meteorologists still get paid even if they don't find any meteors?"

Teaching Across the Curriculum

Although I missed the window of opportunity to do this with my students this year, I definitely plan on teaching across the curriculum next year. To coincide with the Egypt unit in social studies, there are a myriad of science experiments and activities that use natron to "mummify" an apple or some other fruit. Upon learning about Egypt, my students bombarded me with questions about how mummification works, scientifically speaking. It made me sad that I couldn't rearrange my plans to somehow incorporate it :( A well written procedure for this activity can be found here

Quote of the Day

My students were crowding around me, and I told them that I was getting claustrophobic. One of them asked: "Does that mean you're afraid of Santa Claus?!"

Global Warming Awareness

Last week, my students worked on a quilt as a means of educating the rest of the school about global warming: its causes, effects, and methods of prevention. My sixth graders were totally into it, and I'm pretty sure I've created a few environmentalists! Some of them even want to form a club and go plant trees and clean beaches on the weekends! I never thought they'd be so into it, but I'm super-glad I found something that they are passionate about.

Student Teacher Jitters

Yesterday, a student observer taught one of my classes. She is about twenty years old, a junior in college, and studying to be a chemistry teacher. She is basically me two years ago. While watching her teach, I came to the grand realization that these "early exposure" types of experiences are probably more harmful than helpful. I clearly remember my very first experience teaching part of a lesson: it was on ionic bonding in a 7:30 AM chemistry class at John Bowne HS. The students were half asleep and I had no idea what they had learned already. It was uncomfortably quiet, not many of them wanted to participate and it was overall an awkward experience. When I started student teaching, though, I realized that teaching is never uncomfortably awkward at all! I ended up having a lot of fun and was never nervous.

Watching this girl teach was like watching myself two years ago; and I felt so terrible for propagating this whole cycle of new teacher nervousness. Had my students been comfortable with her, and not see her as some random stranger, they would have been their usual goofy selves and it would have been much easier for the student observer to have a good time and make the lesson fun. The lesson was on the difference between chemical and physical changes. She did a pretty decent job overall, but it was obvious that she was nervous and she probably left the experience feeling like she might not be ready for student teaching and ultimately teaching her own classes. I tried to assure her that its much easier when the students are comfortable with you, but she didn't seem convinced. :( This is unfortunate because I'm sure she'll be a fantastic teacher one day.

Halloween Science Demos

Ok, this is my last Halloween post- I promise! I thought I'd share that the slime recipe from my last post is not great, and only made good slime in one of my four classes (By good I mean pliable, not too messy). I also thought I'd share some of the demos I did with a small group of students during the Halloween Party:

1. Calcium in water: it fizzles and smokes and turns a really nice hot pink if you had phenolphthalein to the water first.
2. Calcium in copper sulfate: if you put enough of it, it smokes and turns an opaque baby blue color.
3. Congo Red indicator in acid/base. We pretended it was blood.
4. Iodine tincture (Lugol's solution) on a potato chip, or whatever junk food we found at the party.
5. Silver plating keys, other metals the students had with silver nitrate.

Overall, I've learned that Halloween is a GREAT way to sneak in science!

Luminol in the Classroom

Thanks to a good friend, I was able to get my hands on some luminol solution-- the stuff used in crime scenes to detect blood. I considered showing my students the demonstration on Halloween, but later decided to do it as part of my chemical & physical change unit (mainly because I will have my first formal observation). Apparently, the reaction is perfect, in the sense that it creates light and no heat energy. The only thing missing from this procedure is that you need to add to the peroxide a 10:1 water:bleach solution.

Rock Candy, Super-saturation and Halloween, oh my!

In honor of Halloween and my solutions unit coincidentally happening concurrently, I've decided to give my students rock candy instead of the usual fun-sized goodies. Besides, who has time to read ingredient labels for peanuts/gluten/Kosher and any other dietary restrictions?? In the past, I've attempted to make rock candy in class, but it never seems to work properly. It ends up forming a giant crystal layer on the top, and the container ends up being spilled by a trouble making student. So, I'll make epsom salt crystals as a demonstration, and simply give them food-grade rock candy to calm their nerves and prevent the chorus of can we pleaseeee make rock candy?! Rock Candy in bulk is surprisingly cheap, too!