Faith Rinehart: Elementary Science Methods 1 Blog

What did you learn this week?  We finished our final week of lab talking about our last phenomenon, where do the bubbles come from when we mix vinegar and baking soda. To look at this question we did the experiment of mixing baking soda and vinegar. My group choose to do this experiment two different ways. The first way we did it was we put vinegar in and empty bottle and then baking soda in a ballon. We put the ballon on the water bottle and lifted it up so the baking soda would go into the bottle. The ballon started to fill up with air as the two substances mixed together. We measured the everything together before and after the chemicals mixed and noticed that we had loss mass when it should have stayed the same. So we decided to do it again but without the ballon and instead using the cap of the water bottle to make sure the bottle was sealed up all the way. We did this experiment three times before the weight came out to be the same. How can you apply what you’ve learned to y...

    What did you learn this week?  We started lecture by going back to the experiments we did a couple of weeks ago. We continued to build off of the ideas about the plunger and why it sticks to surfaces. We learned that when you push the plunger down there are more particles on the outside then on the inside and that it why the plunger looks like it is caving in. My group then investigated why the ice melted faster in the pan then on wood. We looked at many different simulations that showed use how the hotter particles move down to the cooler particles and warm them up. A pan gets hotter faster then wood and that's why the ice melts faster. We also learned that particles are in constant motions, collide with each other, and attract each other. How can you apply what you’ve learned to your teaching in the future? I like the flip video we did to show what we learned through our investigation. I think this is a get assessment to see what the student learned throughout the l...

   What did you learn this week?  This week we dove a lot deeper into the topics we have been looking at. We learned that density has a lot to do with what sinks and what does not sink. We talked about the diet coke and coke sinking lab we did a couple of weeks ago. We learned that the diet coke was less dense that the regular coke and that is why it floated. There is less sweetener and that it why it is less dense. We also learned more about the m&m lab we did a couple of weeks ago. We did multiple more experiments to see if certain colors bleed faster. We thought that the red color bleed faster then others. We also did the experiment with hot water, cold water, and salt water. We noticed that the colors bleed faster is hot water. How can you apply what you’ve learned to your teaching in the future? I really liked the coke lab to learn about density. When we did the lab the first time I was really confused why the diet coke floated and the regular coke sank but now t...

  What did you learn this week?  During the lab this week we talked about different properties of matter. We discussed how matter takes up space, has different forms, and how you can't always see matter. We did lots of experiments. During these experiments we looked at volume, mass, electricity, are the objects magnetic, and if the objects sunk or floated. Some of the most surprising observations we made were that the paper clip could sink and float, it just depends on how you put it in the water.  How can you apply what you’ve learned to your teaching in the future? I think that these activities would be a great way to teach students about different properties of matter. I was shocked by some of our results and I think my students would be as well. I also think it would be a great way for students to learn how to calculate the density of these objects. Since we found the volume and mass, we are able to calculate density.  What are new or remaining questions?  I...

 What did you learn this week?  We did so many fun experiments to get us prepared for learning physics. Throughout lab we did 7 experiments,  1. Cold Soda Lab   In this lab we took a soda and water out of a cooler that had ice and observed the condensation. The soda's didn't really have any condensation but the water bottle did.  We also looked our own own drinks and my coffee did have condensation but only were the drink was. So since it was half gone the condensation was only half way up the cup. We can explain the condensation is only were the drink it cold. We wondered why this happens?  2. Plunger Push lab In this lab we put the plunger on different surfaces and pushed it down so it would suction. On some of the surface, like the table, it would suction but on others, like the cardboard, it would not. We determined that the plunger would only suction to flat surfaces. We also discovered that it was harder to pull the plunger straight up but you co...

  1. What did you learn this week?  This week we learned about the drivers for evolution, natural selection and migration. We learned that the four drivers for evolution are natural selection, gene drifts, migration, and mutation. Natural selection means that living organisms will adapt and change to their environment. gene drifts is when there is random fluctuations in the frequency of alleles within a population. We also did a fun bean lab that taught us about natural selection. We each had a different utensil and we were supposed to pick up as many beans (food) as we could in 30 seconds. I started with the popsicle stick and it was so hard to pick up the beans. It would be hard for animals with long beak to pick up their food.  2. Are you able to relate what you learned to what you already knew?  I knew about natural selection and how it was survival of the fittest but I liked being able to have a hands on activity to relate it back to. I never thought about how h...

 1. What did you learn this week? We learned so much this week. First we started by looking at our fast plants. Our fast plant looks like it has died a lot more then the week before. We were able to collect the seeds from our plants. It was interesting to see that some of the plants only had a couple of seeds and some had 10 plus seeds. After that we shared the final results of the baby lab. It was interesting to see how everyones babies looked so different. It just goes to show how different the genotypes and phenotypes can change the look of someone. The last thing we learned was about mutations. We did a couple of simulations in class and then we also did a superhero worksheet. The superhero worksheet showed us how mutations can affect someones DNA makeup. We learned that there can be deletions, substitutions, and insertions into someones DNA makeup.  2. What parts did you find clear and which were confusing? I found the simulations of mutation on the computer very confusin...