Cultivating Wonder

My Last Day, Daphnia and Hydrogen Gas

Today was my last day at Cleveland High School with Mr. Matt Staab.  In some ways I am excited to see my students at Jackson Middle School, and I'm sad to leave these students and the projects they are working on.  I know when I arrive at Jackson my students will be deep into a calorimeter lab and burning all kinds of strange foods.

Today I instructed the freshman biology classes in a small research excercise about Daphnia.  As always I notice how much my teaching improves from one group to the next.  They were answering questions about the website www.caudata.org/daphnia.  I think I was able to give them some good research tools for taking apart a large and complicated scientific text.

The introductory chemistry and physics course spent the afternoon debriefing the lab on gases.  Mr. Staab had them answer specific questions about the results of the lab and dealt with the chemical equation for the reaction.  They then got to watch a movie about the Hindenburg and the flammability of hydrogen gas.

Next week it's back to Jackson!

A Resounding Pop of Enthusiasm

This week in block period the chemistry students set up two experiments to create and capture two gases: carbon dioxide gas and hydrogen gas.  They then tested the flammability and density of both of the gases.  It was a room full of the 'pop' of hydrogen gas.

The students really enjoyed the lab.  It involved getting wet, an acid, and fire.  What more could you ask for?  The best part about the lab was that they were excited about participating and that is definately the most fun for both teachers and students.

How Nasty is the Willamette?

This week during block period the freshman biology students studied Daphnia.  They measured the effect of Willamette River water on the heartrate of the Daphnia by using a microscope and a solution made of dechlorinated distilled water and water collected from the Willamette River near OMSI.  Mr. Staab set this experiment up to prepare students for an inquiry experiment they will be doing next week.   The students had a spectacular time with the Daphnia.

What's more fun is that I got to set up a spreadsheet in Mircosoft Excel to record and graph their data as it came in.  Mr Staab's hypothesis was that the Willamette River water would slow the heartrate of Daphnia down indicating that the water was detrimental to the health of the Daphnia which are often used as a bioindicator in the environment.  The results say otherwise.

During the experiment we only reached a concentration of 35% Willamette River water.  I think Matt Staab will repeat the experiment next year with higher concentrations.  All in all it was a fascinating lab with connections to our local environment.  I'm delighted I got to be there!

A Presentation of Daphnia

Today the freshman biology students were introduced to their lab about Daphnia.  The Daphnia arrive from Boston today and we'll be doing an experiment using Willamette River water hoping to prove that it is detrimental to the life of this bioindicator.  Mr. Staab put together a powerpoint presentation for the students overviewing the life cycle of the Daphnia and the parameters of the experiment.

Two New Rooms

Today at Cleveland High school the biology students were watching a videa about the microscopic world.  The chemistry students did a review for their quiz they will take next week.  For two periods I decided not to watch the video and instead visited two other classrooms at Cleveland.  The first was a physics classroom with mostly Juniors and Seniors.  Physics of all the science is not my strongest subject but during the period I gained a new understanding of Newton's laws as they related to math that I had not understood before.  At the middle school level physics is pretty elementary and so is the math.  I then visited an A.P. biology classroom for an hour.  It was an interesting environment as the students were all working independantly on research projects.  The same frustrations I have with middle school students and independant work time are true with high school juniors and seniors.  Many of them are just happy to talk the period away... Structuring research for students appears to be a challenge I will face at every level.

Two New Rooms

Today at Cleveland High school the biology students were watching a video about the microscopic world.  The chemistry students did a review for their quiz they will take next week.  For two periods I decided not to watch the video and instead visited two other classrooms at Cleveland.  The first was a physics classroom with mostly Juniors and Seniors.  Physics of all the science is not my strongest subject but during the period I gained a new understanding of Newton's laws as they related to math that I had not understood before.  At the middle school level physics is pretty elementary and so is the math.  I then visited an A.P. biology classroom for an hour.  It was an interesting environment as the students were all working independantly on research projects.  The same frustrations I have with middle school students and independant work time are true with high school juniors and seniors.  Many of them are just happy to talk the period away... Structuring research for students appears to be a challenge I will face at every level.

Intentional Confusion

The students in Mr. Staab's indroductory chemistry and physics class have been studying solubility and solutions for awhile yet Mr. Staab felt they still weren't quite getting it.  He also thought it prudent to have them practice for their later inquiry assignments so we set up a small inquiry excercise with three mystery solutions of different concentrations.

The student's had to design an experiment to determine the concentration of their mystery solution over three trials.  We used two salts and sugar, which turned out to be something Mr. Staab will change for next year since the sugar burned rather than simply precipitating out of the solution.

The most fun for me was standing in the back of the chemistry class NOT answering all the questions for once.  Questions of "what are we doing" and "so should I?" got answers like "What do YOU think?"  Overall the students worked well in groups and came up with accurate results.  Hopefully they will complete the lab in their logbooks!

Paramecium, Volvox, and Euglina

Today was block day, the freshman biology class was using microscopes and studying cells by looking at three kinds of protists.  It was exciting to see the little creatures move under the microscopes, and challenging for the students to focus them correctly and track the protists as they moved.

Students were drawing each of the protists at different powers and I hope that they were able to identify some of the parts of the cell they have been studying this past week.

Concept Mapping with Inspiration and Green Vitrol

Today Mr. Staab broke out the rolling laptop computer lab that he wrote a grant for and earned for the freshman academy.  The freshman biology students  worked today with a University of Oregon professor on concept mapping using a piece of software called inspiration.

Our intent was to get the students thinking about reading a textbook and breaking into usable information.  I think they enjoyed the experience, especially having three adults in the room who were well versed in computers and there to answer questions.  My experience so far is that students love adult attention and truly appreciate having an adult to interact with.

In Mr. Staab's introductory chemistry and physics class created sulfuric acid using a substance the ancient's called "green vitrol".  They then got to see if their sulfuric acid would disolve a piece of magnesium.  Unfortunately they did not create a high enough concentration of acid to do much change to the magnesium which I think disappointed some of them.  They like everything to be fireworks.  However it was great to see the lab in action today and see how different Cleveland sets up it's chemistry labs than other schools I have been in.

Bright New Eyes

I love going new places.  I get to use my eyes in brand new ways.  Today was my first day of two weeks I will spend at Cleveland High School with Mr. Matt Staab.  Mr. Staab teaches three periods of freshman biology in an academy system with two other teachers.  He also teaches two periods of Introductory Chemistry and Physics consisting mainly of sophmore students and a few juniors and seniors sprinkled in the mix.  The goal here is to expose me to high school students and a high school curriculum so I can be licenced to teach high school as well as middle school.  I spent most of the day just taking in the school, coming to a realization about how much bigger the students are than I am, getting lost, getting found, and learning how to navigate a new place with different procedures for getting copies done, using the bathroom, and signing in for the morning.  I'm looking forward to the next two weeks.