Newton's Third Law and some fun

This past week I brought out some Newtonian Demonstrators aka Newton Balls aka the click clacky things.  The students love playing with them so it's a great hook to get them into this lesson.  I used these to demonstrate Newton's Third Law.  Students say that every action had an equal and opposite reaction.  Each time they lifted one of the balls on one side and let it go, a ball went up, just as high on the other side.  Most students expected this to happen, but getting them to explain what was happening in terms of Newton's Laws.  It was fun to have students predict what would happen when one ball was lifted on one side and two balls was lifted on the other side.  Most students were amazed with what happened as it wasn't what they expected.

Of course, with some fun comes some problems.  As you can see the demonstrators often get tangeled.  Most of them I am able to get out in a few minutes, but the one below was a real challange.  It was a little worse before I took that picture, but I got a little bit out.  I tried for TWO days and couldn't untangle it (and I like to think that I'm good at untangling things).  One of my honors 8th graders, who isn't even in the class that I did this in) was able to get it out.  I was truely amazed!

You can download a copy of this activity.

Inquiry Projects - a hands on approach to the scientific method

On of my main goals in my 7th grade science class is to expose students to the scientific method and get students doing their own experiments.  No matter how many time I work on things like variables, controls and constants, it's hard for students to understand these concepts without some hands on experience.  Two or three times a year I have students complete, what I call, an Inquiry Project.  In this project, students get the opportunity to develop their own problem/question to investigate.

I help students to develop a problem/question and then they are to write the hypothesis, procedures and materials by themselves.  In addition, I provide them with some analysis questions asking things about variables and constants.

Below are some pictures of some of the activities that my students were conducting.

How does the amount of baking soda effect how much carbon dioxide is produced when mixed with vinegar?

How does the number of mentos effect how big the explosion is when mixed with diet coke?

Augmented Reality in the Science Classroom

This weekend I made a presentation about Augmented Reality in the science classroom.  Everyone seemed to really be excited about using these apps in their classroom.  I've posted my presentation below that you can benefit from it as well!  Most of these apps are available for both Android and Apple.

For those of you who aren't familiar with augmented reality, it's a way to superimpose a computer generated image onto a real world experience.  I know this doesn't explain it very well, so I suggest you download one of the apps and try it out.  Here is a quick video demonstrating one of my favorite apps Anatomy 4D.





This post also appears on my other blog The Tech Savvy Science Teacher.

Reading to Learn in Science

Reading to Learn in Science - A free course from Stanford University Graduate School of Education

Why do so many students struggle to read and comprehend scientific texts? Most science teachers have witnessed it at least once: a student reads from a textbook or article, proceeding calmly and clearly from sentence to sentence, only to reach the period at the end of the paragraph with little comprehension of what he or she has just read. Even children who learn to read quickly—who begin to devour books or blogs, novels or news stories—often seem to struggle with scientific prose. As a teacher, these struggles raise important questions: Which texts should my students read? What should I do if they struggle to understand? Am I teaching a text too quickly? Too slowly? Will more reading become an uphill battle? Will less reading become a slippery slope on which reading becomes even more difficult? This course is designed to address such concerns, giving teachers the tools to help students read for understanding in science.

Crime Scene Classroom

 Some rights reserved by Anoush 

This past week my students have been working on a 3 day long crime scene scenario.  The students had a blast doing it.  I wish I could share the kit with you but it seems that the website is no longer active (I've made some inquiries to see if it's still be offered).  It was a kit called Crime Scene Kids - Anatomy of a Death.  What I like about it is that makes students think critically.  There are some red herrings in there too to throw them off.  This scenario has students reading and analyzing witness testimony, listing to answering machine message, shoe print, fingerprint and handwriting analysis and some "chemical" analyses.

I hope to be able to update this post with a link to the fun activity.  Maybe this is an opportunity for me to create my own crime scene activity to share with all of you!

Do your students enjoy crime scene activities?  Do you have a fun one to share?

Density Labs

Density is a topic that always shows up on our state test and one that students seem to always have trouble with.  These labs were developed to help students understand density as well as practice their skills determining mass and volume.  Students will have the chance to use a balance to determine mass as well as determine volume with a ruler, graduated cylinder and an overflow can.  As with everything I have created I wanted to share it with you! (it's free for the next 24 hours).

I hope you find this helpful.  If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail me.

This product is listed for sale at Teachers Pay Teachers, Teachers Notebook and Syllabuy.

Shelf Life - videos from AMNH

Shelf Life is a new monthly video series from the American Museum of Natural History.  The AMNH is sharing its vast resources with everyone, and you don't even have to go to New York to see them.  Most of the videos are on rarely-seen items from their collection.

"Dive deep inside the Museum's collection to discover the past, present, and future of its approximately 33 million artifacts and specimens in this new series with original monthly videos." - AMNH

Right now there are 3 episodes out, with a new one being posted each month.  Episode One is entitled 33 Million Things and gives you a glimpse at all AMNH has to offer.  Episode Two, Turtles and Taxonomy, talks about the science of classification.  Six Ways to Prepare a Coelacanth is the third episode.  This one focuses on prehistoric fish.  Episodes to come include: Skull of the Olinguito and How to Time Travel to a Star.

This post is cross posted on my technology blog, The Tech Savvy Science Teacher