Grace - Science Methods Blog

  Before The Flood - Urgency of climate action, human activities are the cause, many global impacts, solutions are out there.  - Fossil fuels, deforestation, political roadblocks, consumer choices, global inequality.  - What are the main human things that are contributing to climate change? What can people do to address climate change?  - Build context carefully to students, used inquiry-based activities, think critically, advocate for students, be cautious of what you say and how you say it.  What did you do in lab today?  In lab today, we looked at many images from NASA that showed climate change happening over the years. We also investigated if the Goldfinch was in danger and how we would know based on climate data in the state of Iowa. We looked at different regions throughout Iowa and looked at data of rain fall. We looked at the average in different cities. We were confused on how this relates to the goldfinch bird though and we did not have enough ti...

  What did you do in lab today?  In lab today we talked about the law of superposition and how it relates to the layers of rock because that is what we were investigating. We looked at different examples of layers in the earth and determined which layer is oldest and which is youngest from the law of superposition. We also looked at more challenging examples that had dykes and faults in the layers and had to determine the oldest to youngest layer. We got to look at the characteristics of sands that had to do with water, glaciers, and wind. Each one has different characteristics. We looked at multiple different kinds of sands under a microscope and determined which type we thought it was based on the looks of each sand. It was pretty cool.  What was the big question?  The big question we are investigating is the types of rocks, the rock cycle, and types of erosion and weathering. What did you learn in Thursday's discussion?  In Thursday's discussion, I learned ab...

  What did you do in lab today? I was not in lab because of a doctor's appointment, but I talked to some of my peers in the class and discussed with them what we did in lab. We learned about assessments, such as how we can assess our students, what we need to be teaching them, and the different kinds of assessment. We looked over data based on assessment scores, what they really mean, and looked over examples from questions and data we have answered in this class. We then learned about the layers of the earth along with how plates move. We shared our videos that we made about convection currents and how they play a role in the earth's layers and plate tectonics.   What was the big question? How does the earth work and change over time?  What did you learn in Thursday's discussion? In Thursday's lecture, I learned about the layers of the earth such as the crust, mantle, outer core, and the inner core. I learned about the hot spots in Hawaii, and that is where the magm...

  https://youtu.be/Gor3dTSgwp4 Lab I was not in lab this week, but from what I read and looked at, we thought about when things first appears on earth, such as humans, dinosaurs, plants, and animals. We then placed the answers that we were thinking about on a timeline. We investigated what the significant events in the history of the earth are. Noting the importance of the event, when it happened, and placing it on a timeline. We also brainstormed questions to investigate about earthquakes and volcanoes and how they relate to earth's plate tectonics.  Thursday's Discussion We had our exam so we did not learn or talk about anything new this time.  Pressbook: - I learned that earth was formed around 4.65 billion years ago. I learned that humans came about a long time after rocks, prokaryotes, oxygen, organisms, animals, and plants. I also learned that planet earth was in ice a couple of times and this was called the snowball earth. I learned that because of plate tectonics,...

  What did you do in lab today? In lab today, we learned about the Origin of the Universe, specifically around the Big Bang and different misconceptions around it. One misconception is that the Big Bang created our entire universe and that it was an explosion. We also learned about stars, the life cycle of stars, the origin of the earth, how the earth formed, galaxies, and black holes. We learned about these through different presentations. Black holes are very dense and nothing, not even light, can escape from them.  What was the big question? The big question this week was around the timeline and origin of the universe. Everything we were learning about, such as the life cycle of stars, the origin of the earth, the earth formation, galaxies, and black holes all tie together of the big phenomena of the origin of the universe. What did you learn in Thursday's discussion?  In Thursday's discussion, I learned that water rotates clockwise in one hemisphere, and on the other ...

What did you do in lab today?  In lab today, we got into groups and built a model of the sun, the moon, earth, mars, venus, and mercury. This model needed to be to scale, so we converted the actual distance of the moon and the four inner planets from the sun. We used the sink as our sun, and calculated the different distances going all the way out to the hallway. It was really difficult to think of ways to convert the actual distances in order to make it to scale. This took a lot of trial and error because some of our conversions made it way too small to make the planets, so small that they would be specks of play dough. We also got to explore how the earth is compared to other planets to put things into perspective of just how big our solar system is.  What was the big question? The big question that we were investigating this week is how big is the solar system? We got to get a good idea of this through the physical model of the solar system that we built in lab.  What ...