Final Thoughts on the Science Fair

Awhile back I posted a blog on the science fair, and about my history with science fairs which was none.  That was also before my project was finished, and before I saw the results on what I had gotten.  So, for the final time I will go into the depths of the science fair; the experience, the process, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

First, my project:

My project was the self-inflating balloon project, which came with the following hypothesis: The mixing of vinegar and baking soda will cause a chemical reaction that will cause the balloon to inflate.

It took me two days to make this project and if you couldn't come down the science fair to show your support, I have my full project on display in the picture above.  When the baking soda, mixes with the vinegar, the balloon inflates on its own, as you can see in the pictures attached to my project.  

Overall my project went over well, however there were area's where I could have easily improved the experience.  First, I could have offered a variable as in when telling the user to add more or less baking soda/vinegar to the project to see if the results will be the same.  Second, better questions for the reader to look at and answer probably also would have help me out.  Finally, the pictures weren't the best either, I should have taken some better pictures, or better yet, filmed myself doing the experiment and shown it during the science fair so the kids/parents could have done the experiment themselves.  

Through it all though, I accept the work I did for this project as it was my first ever experience with the science fair.  I explained in a previous blog post that I had never done a science fair before and that this was my first time.  Overall I found the experience to be rewarding, but also kept me wondering.  Prior to this, I understood how the science fair worked, I'd seen enough about them, yet never actually participated in one before, but still understood the overall process.  As someone looking to teach science to young kids, I question how this activity helped me out in furthering that goal.  Judging the actual science fair was something I really enjoyed, and as a teacher that is what you will be doing for the most part, judging the science fair, not participating in one.  

However, who am I to judge, I did get a half way decent grade and as I said before the experience was worth it.  Plus I can finally say I competed in a science fair, something I couldnt't say when I was a kid.  Although, the ironic part about all of this is that kids had way better experiments than I did, and when you really boil it down, that's the important aspect. 

It's to late for me to launch a love for science, but it's not to late for some of these kids, who have a bright future ahead of them.  

Science in The News

One of the assignments that we had to do in our ever evolving science class was an assignment on science in the news.  Briefly, we had to gather a bunch of articles, talk about them, and share them with the rest of our class.

For my the topic of my articles, I choose space/astronomy.  I chose these articles because, while I find science to be my least favorite subject, I have always found space to be engaging.  They call it the final frontier for a reason and that's because it's the part of science I feel we know the least about.  From looking at the different articles I collected, there seems to be something new, a new claim or discovery, almost everyday.  As we unfortunately watch our own planet fall apart scientists have been looking toward space more and more in an effort to save humanity.

Space is probably the most relevant topic to teach in classrooms these days, and unfortunately I don't think it gets the air time it deserves, even in the secondary level.  Exploring space and finding a suitable home for the human race, or saving our own planet is the defining topic of our time and as teachers we need to implore this onto our students as best we can.  The articles that I have pulled out work well in talking about a number of the different planets, and former planets for that matter, and talk about what the future holds for Earth, Mars, and beyond.  I have gathered these articles for everyone to look at, and can be found here.

Book Talk

Today I finally completed my book talk for my science methods class.  This was not my first time doing a book talk.  I recently just did a book talk with 10 different children's books for my Literacy Methods course, so the topic was not unfamiliar with me.

Producing a trailer, however, was a totally new experience.  I had never made a movie in my life, save for a couple 15 second ones captured on my phone in my high school days, so this was all new to me.  I used the website Animoto to create the trailer and it was very easy to use.  As you are well aware if you've been following this blog, I am not the best with technology.  I've probably made a reference to your great-great grandmother being able to use Facebook better than myself and its totally true.  Animoto however was extremely easy to use, and it created my trailer in just four steps. They just require an e-mail address to sign up and it's free.



There are watermarks on the sides of the film when you use the free version, however its nothing grotesque that ruins the quality of the film.  If you want them to go away, you just have to upgrade.  Overall this was a very fun experience and surprisingly quick.  If you want to check out the video I made for my book talk you can check it out here.

My main man Copernicus

While doing our space project in class a few weeks back, I stumbled upon an interesting fellow by the name of Nicolaus Copernicus.  

Now many of you have probably heard of Copernicus, however, do you really know the man?  He single came up with the solar system.  That's right, THE solar system, the one we so wrongfully use to pick on Pluto.  

In 1543 Copernicus wrote a book titled, " De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" or as it's simply know today, "The Book".  In this book, Copernicus makes bold statements, that we today would laugh at the very notion of being thought of as balderdash.  In his book he stated the Earth was round, and that Earth was not the center of the universe.  Again, these are things we would replay with a simple, "Duh" today, however those comments were so flamboyant at the time, they landed Mr. C in jail, where he would die within a few months.  

Thankfully his students, most notably Galileo Galilei, continued to carry on his work long after his death.  As we all know Copernicus was right, the Earth was indeed round, and we revolve around the sun, not the other way around.  As a famous rapper musician once said, haters gonna hate.

Astronomy

Over the last couple weeks, our class has had to gather together 7-10 different articles about astronomy.  I've always liked astronomy, and found space to be incredibly interesting.  The fact that we can look up into the sky and think that it could essentially go on forever, really makes you think.

Ever since I was a kid I've always been fascinated with what happens above us.  Each year in school I'd pretty much bomb every science test with the exception on two: astronomy, and weather.  Weather always interested me, simply because of where we live.  In the northeast, we experience every season, and very rarely is the weather the same, even two days in a row.  Also as a child you tend to watch the weather channel more cause you just have to know when the snow is coming for an all important snow day.

Astronomy on the other hand was something that wasn't as accessible in the realm of facts.  As a child, all I could do was lay out on the grass and night and simply look up.  All you could see was stars and the moon, so it was up to your imagination to figure out what else was there.  As I got older, my questions began to be answered, however those answers usually just led to more questions.  The unique thing about astronomy is that it is the only scientific field that will never be complete.  Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science all have questions remaining, however those questions will be answered.  With Astronomy, and space, it never ends, and so questions will always remain.  

A never ending list of technology

Our class continued this week to explore the realms of the internet by continuing to use different websites and apps to further ours, and our future students educational experience.  As someone who is technologically behind the eight ball, these classes invoke a range of emotion from pure joy, to honest frustration.

The joy of this, is that we are learning new methods and interesting ways to teach our students, that perhaps myself wasn't offered in school because of a lack of technology.  The frustration comes from there simply being so much of it to try and test out.

However when you really break it down, most of these websites are the same thing just packaged differently.  A long list of websites may look intimidating at first, but when you start to examine them more closely, you'll realize they all do the same thing, and learning to master a new one takes no time at all because you've already been there in the first place.

A week 10 jigsaw

This past week saw the coming and going of the 10th week of class.  It's hard to believe we're just 5 weeks from the end of the semester.  It seems like just yesterday I was up all night trying to figure out a lesson plan for 3rd graders back in the 2nd week of class.

Anyway, this past week had us return to our classroom that we haven't seen since week one when we were introduced to the class with strange animal toys.  This time, the toys were left home and a jigsaw puzzle was brought out in its place.

What I mean by jigsaw puzzle is different type of teaching method.  The activity calls for the class to be broke up into two groups.  Each group then assigns roles to each person, and then finally you are to work with the other person in the other group who was assigned the same role as yourself.  You then do all the research and become an expert of the topic, then go back to your respective groups to teach your other teammates all about it.  After each group member has talked about their respective topic, you present your findings to the class.

While it may sound slightly confusing at first, believe me I was in the same boat, once you try it out it actually is a great idea, and one that I will probably use in my classroom at some point.