Grace - Science Methods Blog

 This week we learned about why plungers suction to surfaces, how particles move and break down each other, and we learned why ice melts faster on metal than on wood. We learned that ice melts faster on metal because wood is more porous than metal. It was interesting to see the explanations behind some of the phenomenon that we have been talking about for the past couple of weeks. I can apply what I have learned this week into my future teaching by using pictures and visual resources to aid in students' learning. We looked at pictures close up of wood and it showed how porous it is. I thought this was fun to see things like that while trying to figure out this phenomenon and I would like to use visual tools as a learning aid in my future teaching. I also thought the flip videos were fun because a lot of groups did it differently and I think this is something young students would enjoy doing. I want to be a first grade teacher, so my new question this week is do you think this activ...

 This week we learned about density and continued to explore the properties of matter. We first drew a model of something that we thought represents something less dense and something more dense. We drew less particles in the less dense one and more particles in the more dense one. The little circles in the cubes represent particles or atoms because we said that something is more dense when it has more atoms inside of it. We then did an experiment with M&Ms to see if a certain color dispersed faster in water than the other colors. We decided that none of the colors dispersed faster than the others, but found that having sugar in the water makes the colors leak out slower. We learned that this is because the water is more dense with the sugar (more particles) in it than regular water (less particles). This matched up to the models that we drew at the beginning of class and it was cool to see how density really works. I am able to related what I have learned to what I already kne...

 This week we learned about the different properties of matter, and tested many different materials for different properties of matter such as the volume, mass, whether it conducts electricity, whether it sinks or floats, etc. It was interesting to test out all of the different materials to see which material had certain properties of matter and which ones they did not have. The different weight of the pennies was interesting to learn about and that the aluminum foil was not conducting electricity. I can apply what I learned to my teaching in the future by doing the lab activity that we did with my future students. I thought this activity was really fun and it was a really good way to understand and see which materials had which properties. I think it would be a really good activity to do with young students because they can get a better understanding of the properties. I also think this activity would create great questions for students to wonder about. This activity has created s...

  This week we learned about matter. Specifically, we learned about the properties of matter, what matter is, what is considered matter, and matters reactions and interactions. We did this through observing different stations, each showing different things of matter. I am able to relate what I learned to what I already knew because I have taken many classes before this one where I learned about matter and the properties of matter. Many of the big ideas and concepts that were introduced this week were all very familiar. The one new thing that changed my perspective on what we learned to what I already knew was the idea of new questions arising through each observation. When I learned about matter and its properties before, I never really thought of new or arising questions, but the different activities we did in lab made me think of questions that I never thought before. I can apply what I learned to my teaching in the future by using the activities that we did in lab with my future...