Sputnik?

America's schools are continuously falling behind other nation's schools. Unfortunately, I feel that it comes from our students not caring. Let's face it. We live in a very competitive country. But sometimes I feel that we put more emphasis on things other than education, which should not be such a priority. We need to get our students better prepared for the workforce world. Education is one of the most important things that our children have the opportunity to gain. This is one thing that can not be taken away from them. It is also a competitive area among different countries. Can STEM put America where it needs to be in comparison with the other countries? I say YES, it can, with work and dedication on the part of the teachers, STUDENTS, as well as the PARENTS.

I feel that we, as the United States have a long way to go before there is a commitment to science education reform. I'm not saying that we haven't gotten our toes wet yet, however, I do believe that there is a long way to go before we reach the forefront of global competition. Our students have been told for far too long that science is not important and that it does not count. This is going to take a lot of undoing before it even begins to get a little better. Some schools have started to try to put science back as an important part of our student's education. This may be coming from a higher authority. As a step in the right direction, my school has started taking science really serious. This is however due to the fact that science is becoming the second indicator for our Annual Yearly Progress. Science is really getting a lot of attention lately...but has it come too late?

With the millions of dollars being spent on the wars, one would think that education would be slightly as important. I do not understand why education keeps getting cut in the budget cuts when education is what is needed for one to succeed. The things that our schools could do with all of the million, billions of dollars that is being spent on wars. Just does not seem fair to our children...country...nation.

Natural Disasters

I feel it is very important for our young students to be scientifically literate and compassionate. I am an advisor for a club at my school called the Junior Beta Club. Our club has gotten together to raise and collect money to send to Japan for the families that have been devastated by the earthquake and tsunami. What makes this fundraiser so special to me is that it was the children's idea to raise the money to send to Japan. The Junior Beta Club members have asked the other students in the school not to buy ice cream or cookies, but to instead, give that money for the families in Japan. Some students have given up their cookies or ice cream while others have not, but it is a start in our endeavour.

Web 2.0 Tools

Prezentit

Pros

~Images are easy to upload

~Has tutorial

~Easy to use

~FREE

Cons

~Limited on what you can do

~Presentations must be on line

~Files are not down-loadable

Heat Insulators

This week's assignment was to select several different items to use as heat insulators. I chose newspaper, cotton cloth, nylon, and aluminum foil. I placed 140 degree water in four ceramic coffee mugs. I then placed an insulator on each of the mugs. After thirty minutes was up, I took off the insulators and measured the temperature of each mug. Mug 1, with the cotton cloth was 112 degrees. Mug 2, with the nylon pantyhose was 104 degrees. Mug 3, with the newspaper was 110 degrees. And mug 4 with the aluminum foil was 112 degrees.
I was pretty surprised at my results. I really wasn't expecting the mug with the aluminum foil to be so warm because aluminum is such a good heat conductor. If I were to do this experiment again, I think I would choose plastic wrap, some type of foam, and I would like to use rubber as well.

Guided Inquiry

It is a little hard for me to do some of these projects or investigations in my classroom due to the fact that I teach life science, and we are a standards based school. I have to follow the state standards in the classroom, but I try to do some of these investigations after school.

The question I selected for my guided inquiry lesson is: Which pendulum will come to rest more quickly—a lighter pendulum or heavier pendulum?
In this lesson, I made two pendulums using 18 inches of string tied to the shower curtain rod. On one I hung a one pound lead weight. On the other I hung a three ounce wood block. I pulled them back the same amount and let them go at the same time. The results are as follows:
Lead weight Wood block
Attempt 1 58 seconds 40 seconds
2 50 seconds 40 seconds
3 60 seconds 38 seconds


A heavy pendulum swings longer, but I don’t know why. A heavy weight does not fall faster than a light one when dropped, and surely gravity acts on the pendulum the same way. The fact that the pendulum is moving through an arc rather than straight down may have something to do with it. I tried to keep all the other variables the same-length of the string, letting them go at the same time, doing it in the same place so air currents or temperature wouldn’t affect the results.

This type of experience reinforces learning for students, and makes them remember the results much better than reading from the text. The issue I have in my classroom is that we can not breed fruit flies to study genetics, or go into the field to learn about ecosystems. We just do not have the resources. More than any other field, life science should be inquiry based, but I don’t know how to make that happen yet.

Inquiry Lesson

For my inquiry lesson this week, I chose a lesson on genetics. Because school is still out here where I teach, I am using my daughter, niece, and nephew for this lesson. They were given six genetic traits. They had to determine if they had dominant or recessive triats for these particular triats. They then had to predict the outcome of their parents traits, and then find the actual outcome. They combined their findings finding the ratio and percentage of each trait. They then drew a bar graph for each given trait. They chose one trait to draw a punnett square, and one trait to do a pie chart. The pages that I used for them to gather this information would not upload for me on here. Below are pictures of them doing the project, and then the project once they completed it.

Ice Caps

I know I am a little late with this, and I do apologize. I had a close family friend pass away, but here is my post:

I found that in my experiment, I had no water flow out of the bowl. The only water that I had coming from the bowl was from the condensation. I did the experiment twice just to make sure I had done it correctly and I got the same results both times. I feel that the displacement of the ice was the reason for this.

Maybe I am wrong, but I feel that the global warming issue is hyped up way more than it should be. I am not saying there are not issues or problems. What I am saying is that I do not think that it is as bad as some people make it out to be. Like I said...I am not an expert on this matter by no means, this is just my opinion.