Jenna- Elementary Science Methods Blog

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. We started out lab by discussing CO2 levels. One thing I found interesting was discussing how much carbon dioxide in the room. Students task orientation, initiative, basic strategy, and more go down when the CO2 level is over 2,500ppm. Take the kids outside, less CO2. We then discussed the snowball earth and how it would thaw. We discussed that volcanic activity causes CO2 to be released which causes the earth to get warmer. We then discussed what we personally can do to help with climate change. We can recycle correctly, compost, weatherize your apartment, bikes and busses, and more! Climate change is something that we can fix. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we took the final exam. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? Earth’s climate has always fluctuated; the difference now is that Earth is experiencing significant climate change in a muc...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. We started out lab by discussing climate change and where we are at now. We then discussed the greenhouse effect-visible light comes in, some is reflected as infrared, infrared can escape to space, most heat is contained in the atmosphere. Snow reflects a lot of the light, without snow, less gets reflected. A big question is what is the albedo effect and how does it affect climate? How does the GH Effect interact with the albedo effect? Is the albedo effect a positive or negative feedback loop? Positive cycles amplify while negative cycles negate effects. Ice caps melting at the North Pole are a positive feedback loop (increasing absorption rates). Greenhouse gas is a gas that absorbs and re-emits infrared light. For centuries, atmospheric carbon dioxide has never been above 300 ppm, but currently averaging 418 ppm (and isn't slowing down or tapering off). Since 1750-- carbon dioxide has increase 42%, methane h...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. The beginning of the class, we discussed climate change in Iowa. The climate is already changing and Iowans are already adapting. We then expanded our scope to looking at all of the United States and the entire world. Every single piece of data we looked at showed that there is changing. It also shows that it is warming quicker. The driving question today was how does climate change affect the sea level? If all glaciers melted, sea level would rise 70 meters which would flood every single costal city. Sea level doesn't rise as sea ice melts as it is already in the water and accounted for, but when land glaciers melt, it adds to the ocean and causes the sea level to rise. We then discussed the Paris Climate Accord. The US was the first country to sign the accord, but then pulled out of the accord and now is the only country not int he Paris Climate Accord. The US has the largest emitter of greenhouse gases per p...

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we started discussing climate change. To investigate this, we analyze the rainfall in Iowa. My group focused on the Northeast section of Iowa. We found that the rainfall increased by 329%. We found that in Iowa as a whole, the Northern band is a lot wetter than the Southern band. The driving question we had was how do we know that the Goldfinch is in danger in Iowa? The answer is that the climate is changing and the Goldfinch can't adapt as quickly as the climate is changing. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we took our Earth content exam.  Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned that climate change is human made and is a problem that we will jhave to confront in the future. What was most helpful? Watching the movie was so interesting and helped me learn more information about climate change. What do you need more informatio...

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we started out by being shown a picture of rocks and had to determine what rocks came first. We worked through that picture as a class. The rocks follow the law of superposition, which means that the rocks at the bottom are the oldest and the rocks at the top are the youngest. We then focused on sand and looking at them through a microscope. It was interesting because all of the sand was different from each other. We were able to place the sand in the communities that they belonged. To conclude class, we discussed Archimedes principle and water displacement and looked at Geodes to try and see which geodes would be hallow inside and which geodes would be solid inside. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we discussed more in detail about the rock cycle. We also went into detail about erosion --> wind erosion, water erosion, and glacier erosion. We finished class by drawing...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we spent some time discussing rocks and the types of rocks. The big question we focused on was: What is a rock? We used starbursts to create the 3 different types of rocks: Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. We also spent some time discussing the structure of the earth: the solid core, liquid mantle, and the crust. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we discussed rock types and the law of superposition. The law of superposition states that the rocks at the bottom are the oldest and the rocks at the top are the newest. That follows pretty true unless theres is a fault or dyke. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned about the types of plates on the earth and the different landforms that can come about with them. When two continental plates converge, the land is pushed into each other and forms a mountain. When to oceanic plate...

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we focused on significant events in the history of the Earth. We have 4.3 billion years on this Earth, but most things didn't happen until .5-1 bya. The Earth is completely different from when it originally appeared. We used biointeractive.org (earthviewer) to find the timing of the geologic events and added them to the timeline. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we took the space science exam. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? If the entirety of Earth's history was represented on a clock, humans wouldn't appear until 11:59:40. There have been 3 times in Earth's history where the entire planet was entirely ice. That happened because of a positive feedback loop. The reason that the snowball earth ended is because volcanoes kept erupting which caused the carbon dioxide to build up and start melting the ice, which led to ...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we did presentations about the following concepts Origins of the Universe, Lifecycles of Stars, Galaxies, Origin of the Earth, Black Holes, and Exploration of Space (past, present, and future). My group presented on galaxies: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QG_PaivJ7nScxtVJi-5uTTiCqH6PRVKeqGkQcH7iSxI/edit?usp=sharing A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we spent time further discussing the topics that we did presentations on in lab. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? The textbook helped us learn the timeline of how our universe formed. It started with the Big Ban 13.7 billion years ago. Then there was a mass star formation, which lead to the black hole and the Milky Way to be formed. The earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago. What was most helpful? I found the videos to be most helpful because they are an engaging way to l...

   The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab, we investigated the size of our solar system. We had to make it to scale, which really put it into perspective the size of our solar system. We made our sun about 7-8 cm long and it lead the rest of the planets to be less than a millimeter. We focused a lot of our discussion on the size of the solar system. It really put it into perspective about how large the solar system is and how small the Earth is in comparison. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we learned that the sun has never been directly above us in Iowa, which is why our shadows always point north. We also learned about the origins of the moon. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned the order of the planets and that the inner 4 planets are rocky and the outer 4 are gaseous.  What was most helpful? I found the video that put into perspective the size of sp...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab we discussed the following questions: How do the phases of the moon occur? Initial thought: occur due to the position of the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Part of the moon is dark because it is covered by Earth's shadow. What we learned: The moon we see is the side that is light up by the sun. What causes the seasons? Initial thought: When the Earth is further from the sun, it is Winter, when the Earth is closer to the sun, it is Summer. What we learned: The Earth is titled and sometimes the northern hemisphere is titled towards the Sun and sometimes the southern hemisphere is titled away from the sun. What causes a lunar eclipse? Initial thought: when the moon falls into Earth's shadow What we learned: The Earth, Moon and Sun all align so the shadow of the Earth covers the moon from the sun. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we learned about the moon phases and the Sun....

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. The big question we address in lab was How can we design a safe and durable playground surface? We created our own surface and tested it with dropping and egg. We successfully created as surface with sand and hay to save our kid (egg) from a one meter fall. This was tough because the bowl was small so we had trials where the kid bounced out of the bowl. We had to refine our design to have less material inside to save our kid. We were unable to save our kid from a two meter drop and we ran out of kids to try again. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture this week, we took an exam over the past 5 weeks of physics . Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? There was no textbook reading this week. What was most helpful? What do you need more information on? What questions/concerns/comments do you have?

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. To begin in math class, we finished up our discussion about friction and slides. After our discussion about slides, we moved on to the big question addressed in lab: What affects how long it takes a swing to go back and forth? My group focused on how the weight of the rider would affect the speed of the swing going back and forth. We found that the weight doesn't matter and the speed of the rider stays pretty close to the same despite the weight difference. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we went into detail about Newton's first and second law along with discussing energy in detail. We discussed how those concepts relate to swings and what can change the speed of the swing.   Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned what potential and kinetic energy is and how it affects a pendulum swing As a pendulum swings upward, it is po...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. What affects a riders speed down a slide?  In lab, we modeled this by testing different variables. My group tested how hight of a slide would affect riders speed down the slide. We found that with any type of material, the rider is going at a faster speed when the height of the slide is higher. For example, when the wooden stick traveled 1 meter, it was going at a speed of 1.82 m/s. When the wooden stick traveled 2 meters, it was going at a speed of 2.56 m/s. That pattern continued with 2 other types of materials showing that the taller the height, the faster the speed of the rider. In other words, the taller the slide, the faster the child will go. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture In lecture, we discussed what we learned in lab and learned more of the reasoning of why those moments happen.  We discussed that the higher the slide, the faster the speed of the rider because riders...

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. The big question that we focused on in lab was: How can we ensure that a race is exciting? In lab, we decided to model a race that the two people who are different speeds will finish at the same time. We modeled a 5 meter race and did a test run to see the speeds of the two races. One racer walked at 1 mps faster than the other, so the slower racer got a 1 meter head start for the race. During the model, the two racers finished at the same time. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we practiced measuring speed and distance to have two people finish the race at the same time. We discussed that speed= distance/time. We also discussed that there are 2 ways to give someone a lead in a race, they could either get a time or a distance head start. We practiced some problems using that as well. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned that accelerat...

Questions  The questions that we worked on investigating this week are:  How can a particle model help to explain  - Why the plunger is hard to pull up when suctioned? - Why does ice melt faster on metal than on wood? - Why do cold drinks get water droplets on the outside?   Plunger Experiment  Today we spent part of lab investigating why the plunger is hard to pull up when it is suctioned to the table. The reason is that there is 14.7 psi pushing down on the plunger at all times. When the plunger is not suctioned, there is 14.7 psi also pushing up inside the plunger so it cancels each other out. When the plunger is suctioned, there is still 14.7 psi pushing down on the plunger, but now there is less than 14.7 psi pushing up inside the plunger, which is why it is hard to pull it up, you would need enough force to cancel out 14.7psi. Model we created to explain this Condensation on Can Experiment Water particles in the air are a higher temperature than ...

 This week, the questions we focused on were: what is the fundamentals of matter? Do colors spread the same? To analyze those questions we focused on the m&m experiment from a couple of weeks ago. We did some additional expierements to see the speed at which the m&ms color spread. Although adding in more water didn't impact the speed at all, other metrics did. Adding in sugar to the water made the spread of color slow down. Adding in hotter water made the spread speed up. The reason that sugar caused it to slow down was because there were more molecules in the water that the m&m sugar could hit before spreading out. Hot water sped up the speed of it spreading because the molecules are moving quicker. Overall this lab helped me understand more about molecules and how they spread. I am still wondering how to explain what a molecule is to an elementary student.

This week we learned more about matter and focused on the question of: what is matter? What are differences between objects and how can we measure them? To focus on those questions we made a table of many different objects and then found out characteristics and variables of the objects. At the end of class, we learned about density. Density is mass/volume. A less dense object will float and a more dense object will sink when placed in water. It connected to the coke float we did last week. The reason the diet coke floated and the regular coke sunk even though they have the same volume is because the coke has lots of sugar which increases the mass. Table we created comparing different matter One thing I am still wondering is if you break a paper over and over infinite amount of times, will it always be paper?  

 This week, we focus on going through stations as an introduction to chemistry. The question that we focused on was: what is matter? How do we support elementary students in learning about matter and its interactions?  In lab, we transitioned through 6 stations that had a phenomenon and we needed to try and find an explanation for it. I attached some images from the stations that I found most interesting. All of them can be implemented in an elementary classroom as an introduction to a unit. This was used as an introduction to the next five weeks and we will be able to explain the phenomenon in the next couple of weeks. I am still wondering a lot of information about the stations like, why did the colors of the m&ms not mix, why did coke not float and diet coke did, and why did the metal pans met the ice quicker than the cutting board? I am also wondering how to control students during experiments like this and ensure they are gaining learning while also having fun with th...

 The focus questions for today's lab was: - What makes something living? -How do plants get their food? -Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go? -What makes a good lesson plan according to the NGSS? To investigate those questions we focused on reviewing our past materials. To review, we created tri-folds and used resources and our past knowledge to work to answer the above questions. Another fun activity we did in class was investigating 3 cubes and trying to figure out the 6th side without picking it up or moving it. This was an activity that focused on patterns and you had to make a claim and use evidence to try and reason with what the 6th side would be. It was a good example of something we could do in a classroom to keep students interested. Overall, I believe I learned a lot during Biology and am excited to apply it in the classroom.

 This week, the questions that we were focused on were: Why do organisms have so many similarities and yet so many differences? What makes a bird a bird?  To investigate those questions, we created a model of natural selection. We used beans and had a predator prey on the beans. We used a spoon as a bird beak and the environment was water. We had two different types of beans, one that floats and one that didn't float. In the model, the beans that didn't float were more likely to survive and were able to reproduce more than the ones that floated. We changed the model and used tweezers as the beak. That changed the simulation to make the beans that floated more likely to  float. The model was a good representation of natural selection because there were two different traits, and one was more likely to survive and then more likely to reproduce children with the same traits. We also watched a video about the ancestors of birds. It turns out that birds are actually a relative ...