Making Changes

Since I do not have my own classroom, it is hard to give an example of how I helped overcome the problems of diversity within my school.  However, a friend of mine who is a science teacher approached me with a problem of her own.  She teaches in a low-income part of town where most of the students in her classes come from poverty-stricken homes, are often abused, and live in drug-ridden environments.  With so many distractions in the classroom due to behavior problems, she finds little time to reach all of the students who are actually motivated to learn.  She knows they are missing out on opportunities because she needs to devote so much time to serious situations caused by other students.  She met with the other teachers in the school and together they created a plan to help solve the problem.  They decided to sort the students within the classes by learning level so that they could focus on reaching more students on their own levels.   All the teachers collaborated on the plan and were pleased with the arrangement.  However, when the teachers took their plan to the administration, they were met with obstinacy.  Instead of receiving cooperation, they were all berated for even considering the possibility of separating the students into different classes.  The classes remain the same and the motivated students in the classes are struggling to learn from their teachers.  The teachers are without resources to control the unruly students and trying their best to give all the students the learning experiences they need, but it is not enough. 

It is difficult to make changes within the district and further out if teachers do not even have the power to make changes within their own schools or even within their own grade levels.  I have said that perhaps part of the solution to improving STEM education was for teachers to receive more training in improving lessons within the classroom, but now I want to change that statement slightly.  I think the solution to improving STEM education needs to begin with the people higher up in the system.  Those with the power to change things within the system should probably be the ones getting the most training and education on how to improve learning in the classrooms.  Teachers can have wonderful ideas, but without the power to implement them, they are useless. 

The Problem with America

I think Friedman is absolutely right in stating that there is nothing to spur us to better educate ourselves (Friedman, 2010).  The biggest science topics lately are focused around climate change and the multiple natural disasters happening all around the world.  These occurrences are prompting citizens to better educate themselves on their causes.  People have become much more resourceful in trying to do their part to save the planet.  They are more environmentally cautious and try to live more lightly.  It is great that this has happened.  The global climate change is serious and needs to be rectified.  It is also wonderful that everyone is becoming more aware of global issues and noticing the rest of the world.  Just the other night, my twitter feed was full of tweets concerning the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  I was getting faster updates on the event from the tweets there than the news on CNN.  This is a great technological advance, but it is not enough for us.  

The United States has been so concerned about fixing the problems of other countries that we have lost focus of our own issues.  If we spent less time and money in Afghanistan and more trying to build vehicles that could run on non - gasoline products, we would not need to go overseas for oil in the first place.  Our money could remain here and we would be reducing our carbon footprints at the same time.  

I think the problem is not that we do not have any exciting events happening to spur us, it is that the events that do happen do not have the knowledge about them as widespread as there was for Sputnik or people are not as knowledgable about them to appreciate the magnitude of the event.  Amazing things are happening all the time in STEM fields.  Between stem cell research and the realization of the medical uses of stored cord blood, it would be hard to state that nothing exciting has happened in science since Sputnik.  

When Sputnik was launched, it was clear to all Americans that they were behind other countries in science.  That is not the case today.  I believe most Americans do not realize how far behind we are.  As a teacher, I am aware of our deficits in math and science when compared to other nations.  However, I believe if I were not in the teaching profession, I would not be aware of the international differences.  It is not publicly known that American students are behind their equals in other countries.  Maybe if there were television commercials informing everyone that elementary students from other countries are more advanced than our own, there would be an angry public outcry that would force the country to improve science education.  If videos about our lack of technological skills went viral on YouTube the way videos of funny cats do, there would be dozens if not hundreds or thousands of blog posts declaring there needs to be a change.   Movies like “The Social Network” give the nation a false sense of pride in believing we are on top when it comes to technology advances.  More movies should be made about how far behind we are.  

Technology changes so often and Americans could be the ones making the changes.  It is great to think that sites such as Facebook or Myspace were created by citizens of the United States.  However, these two sites are already becoming outdated and replaced by Twitter and Tumblr just as OpenDiary and LiveJournal were replaced.  Soon Twitter will be a figment of the past and replaced by something new and exciting.  

Friedman stated: “We just keep thinking we can do it all -- be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can't” (Friedman, 2010).  One big issue is that science and math curriculum in the United States is crammed full of topics.  By trying to fit every topic into one year of study, students do not get enough time to fully understand what they need to.  They get little snippets of ideas and just a small taste of every thing.  They have large extensively detailed textbooks.  In most other countries, the topics are limited and the students can spend a lot more time fully understanding them.  The textbooks are simple paperback books the size of large pamphlets.  It has been established that in order to meet the level of countries, we need to greatly reduce the amount of topics covered in the curriculum, but the challenge is deciding what is important and what is expendable (McGinnis & Robert-Harris, 2009).  

Other challenges include funding and teacher training.  Unfortunately, I think it will be awhile before the country can get its act together and put its funding into the necessary places to make these ideas happen.  I think we can probably all agree, though, that America needs to fix its own problems before it deals with the problems of everyone else. 

References

Friedman, T. L. (2010, January 17). What’s our sputnik? [Op-Ed]. The New York Times [Late Edition (East Coast)], p. WK.8. 

McGinnis, J. R., & Robert-Harris, D. (Sept/Oct 2009). A new vision for teaching science. Scientific American Mind, 62–67.

Lesson Reflection

For this lesson, I had the students construct buildings of connecting blocks and do an earthquake simulation to watch how the buildings fell apart.  We discussed what a fault line was and how the Earth is made of moving plates.  We made a model volcano and watched it erupt.  

The students met half of the goals for this lesson. The students were able to list the possible effects of an earthquake.  They stated that the ground shakes, buildings fall apart, and things can fall off the shelf.  They were able to demonstrate the proper safety techniques to protect themselves during an earthquake.  They either stood in a doorway or if possible went into a room with no windows or loose or breakable objects.  

The students had trouble stating exactly why a volcano occurs.  They were along the right track in stating that magma comes out of the ground, but they did not know why.  With help, I was able to guide the students to the answer, but they did not fully understand it.  The students were able to draw pictures of a volcanic eruption.  

The volcano eruption went over really well with the students.  They had fun building the model and watching it erupt.    In the future, I think I might find a different recipe for making the base of the volcano because ours was not holding together very well.  The children had fun playing with it though.  I explained to the students that in real life magma is very hot and that if they lived near a volcano erupting, they would have to leave home to be safe.  We talked about what things they would want to grab if they had to leave home in a hurry.  This part of the lesson really helped them to sympathize with victims of natural disasters.  We discussed what they could do to help other people who had to leave their belongings behind to evacuate.  They wanted to send their toys to the other children.  I consider this an effective part because I believe part of making students scientifically literate should involve making them compassionate members of society.  

The students had a difficult time understanding plates and fault lines.  It was hard for them to process that the plates only move a couple centimeters over a long period of time.  I think they envisioned the plates being able to be moved around and rearranged.  They kept insisting we could eventually live by a fault line and thus have earthquakes often.

They had a difficult time grasping how the plates moved so I decided to construct the snack plate tectonics another classmate suggested during discussion.  We did not have fruit roll ups so we used two layers of graham crackers and frosting to show how the plates moved and how the “magma” came up between the plates.  This helped them better understand, but they still had trouble applying this to an actual fault line.  I will use this information to improve on this lesson in the future.  I will design a model of the plates and fault lines around the world to better show the students where they are and how they move. 

The models really helped the students better understand what happens during an earthquake and a volcanic eruption.  The students have never experienced either of these events before.  It was difficult for them to apply the volcanic eruption to a large scale volcano because ours did not erupt so much as overflow and it obviously was not hot like a real volcano.  The earthquake simulation did help them understand what happens to buildings because they got to see their buildings crumble when the plates shook.  This concept is universal so all students were able to understand it despite background differences.   

In all, this lesson was a success.  With another model included and some minor changes, it could be even more effective.  The students took away new knowledge and concepts.  They also learned valuable life -saving techniques to prepare them in case of an earthquake. 

Natural Disasters

Where I live, we have very few natural disasters.  We get occasional flooding in lower parts of town during heavy rainstorms, but other than that and massive amounts of snow, we are usually lucky in that we do not get struck by natural disasters.  This makes it difficult for students to fully understand what a natural disaster is like because they have never experienced it.  I can help them in this aspect by reading them fictional and non fictional stories about disasters such as Night of the Twisters by Ivy Ruckman (one of my favorites) or stories written by victims of past disasters.  They can also view storm visualizations online to see what type of damage can be done.  They can view before and after photos of an area struck by disaster and discuss what happened to the victims.  

We can practice what to do in the event of a disaster and they can prepare evacuation plans with their family.  They can write paragraphs about what they would take with them if they had to evacuate their house in a hurry.  

As a class or school, the students can either collect items such as non perishable food items or clothing to send to victims of a natural disaster or raise money to help relief efforts.  This could become a good community project as students can hold a regional drive to collect items.  Many relief efforts can accept the help of children such as the American Youth Red Cross.  

Students can search for information about historical natural disasters.  They can graph the locations of these disasters on world maps and make charts indicating the number of deaths and casualties reported to compare the severity of the disasters.  Students can break up into groups.  Each group can research a different natural disaster and then present that information to the rest of the class in a visual presentation.  Students could choose to present a visualization of the storm by recreating it in a controlled environment such as a tornado in a pop bottle or flooding in a large tupperware container.  

Ask A Scientist

I still have not received an answer from Ask A Scientist yet.  My question was what is the difference between brain cells and other cells that make them last so much longer? 


I was interested in finding out whether brain cell death was a natural occurrence or not.  If it was a natural occurrence then I wonder what the difference is between the 500 brain cells that die this hour and which ones survive to the next hour.  


I would like to use this site in a classroom but I would be worried that the scientists would not answer all of the students' questions and one student might get left out.  

Web Tools

Animoto (www.animoto.com)

This website allows you to upload photos or video clips and turn them into a music video.  It would be a great attention grabber for the beginning of a lesson or could be used by students as a part of a portfolio displaying photos of the sequence to a project they worked on or a field trip they went on. 

It is very simple and quick to use. A 30 second video is free.  All you need to do is provide the pictures or video. A year subscription is $30.  With a paid subscription you can make longer videos.  

The animated transitions between pictures are nothing too impressive but would appeal to younger children.  You can upload up to 15 elements (pictures/vid clips/text) per video.  You can upload your own music or select one of theirs to add to your video.  The advertisement is that it will make your pictures look the quality of a music video, but that is not quite true.  I could probably do a better job with windows movie maker or an equivalent program but it was much faster to create and they provide you with an automatic embedding code to share with friends, family, or colleagues.  

The site does give a tutorial video of how to use the uploader and make your video but the site was so easy to use, it probably is not necessary.  The only thing I did not like about it was that if you choose to use one of their songs, there is not a search engine to see which ones are available.  You must simply browse through each category to find one you like.  This website could be accessible from anywhere there is an internet connection as long as you have your photos or video clips accessible.  I uploaded my pictures directly from another internet site so they were already handy.  

Here is the video I made using pictures from the science center.  I edited it a couple times, but in all, the final product took less than 5 minutes to create.  

Mckeever: A Home Away from Home

Prezi (www.Prezi.com)

Prezi is a presentation tool that works similar to the way PowerPoint would but in a very nonlinear fashion.  It provides an infinite plane of space to cover your topic using texts, drawings, pictures, graphs, etc.  

The appeal of Prezi is the transitions between slides.  It spins and zooms in and out to create an eye - catching sequence of content.  It is very neat to watch a presentation on Prezi, but it makes me dizzy the way it moves around.  It does look very professional though, as if it was done by skilled computer programmers.  The site offers various video tutorials and a “Help” button. 

I am not sure if many younger students would find this program as easy to use.  Because there is such a large plane of space to use, it is almost overwhelming as to where to place the objects as opposed to the linear fashion of PowerPoint where everything goes on a slide and when you run out of space you simply move to the next slide.  You could make it linear with Prezi if you chose to place everything horizontally or vertically but it would really defeat the purpose of the program.  

Prezi Basic is free to use and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.  The presentation can be downloaded to be viewed offline.  You can purchase Prezi Pro and be able to create presentations offline as well.  Prezi presentations can be easily shared and they provide you with an embedding code. 

I made this very simple one just so I could test out the program.  

American Bison

Open Zine (www.openzine.com)

The idea behind Open Zine is to allow you to create an online magazine about the content of your choice.  The first thing I noticed about this website that may not make it suitable for classroom use is that on the homepage there are samples of other zines with cover pictures that are not quite suitable for school.  There may be a way to access the website without viewing other zines but it would be something to look into. 

I started to create a simple zine to see how easy the site was to use and it was a bit overwhelming.   This would be great for a year long or semester long project for older students to create.  It is basically a multi - page blog that can be collaborated on by multiple people.  It was easy to upload and crop or resize photos. I did not see any tutorials of how to use the site but there were so many buttons to click on, it was hard to tell where things were.  

It is free and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.  I believe your zine can be shared by link or it could be a private zine available only to those with the password.  

Topics and Tools

Topic: Relativity 

http://physics.about.com/od/relativisticmechanics/Theory_of_Relativity.htm

This website has a list of resources giving an overview on the theory of relativity as well as related topics such as information about Albert Einstein and topics such as the Doppler effect in light.   This would be a good starting place for students just looking for an introduction to the Theory of Relativity.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/einstein.html

This site contains information on relativity using easy - to - understand diagrams.  The page is colorful and bright, making it attractive to students.  This is a student - friendly website using understandable vocabulary. 

http://www.youtube.com/user/MyEarbot

This company has created various videos illustrating the concepts of relativity, such as simultaneity, making them simpler and easier for students to understand.  

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/

This website has a plethora of resources. It includes links to information about the scientists who paved the way for Einstein, stories of contemporary artists relating Einstein’s work into their everyday life, videos, animations, and quizzes.  This site contains information related to the essence of gravity and collapsed stars.  It also contains brief animations of Einstein’s experiments related to relativity such as a car trying to race a beam of light.  This website is useful in finding information about Einstein relating to his work on relativity. 

Activity

The PBS website has a lot of possible classroom activities with supplemental resources.    One particular activity helps students understand just what the equation E = MC² means.  The site provides a supplemental graphic organizer to go along with the experiment.  “In this activity, students examine the components of a chemical reaction and make measurements to confirm the conservation of mass in a closed system (quart freezer bag)” (Lightman, 2005).  Students will be mixing harmless citric acid and baking soda in a freezer bag and comparing masses.  It is a structured inquiry lesson as the students are given the question and the procedure.  The teacher will ask the class what they predict  might happen when baking soda and citric acid mix.  The teacher will demonstrate the mixture and show that nothing happens.  The students will work in small groups to mix the substances but adding water to the mix.  Students will be measuring the masses of the substances prior to combining them and then again after.  The students will observe the chemical change as the combination creates a gas and they will discover the conservation of mass after the reaction.  The students can also measure the temperature of the substances before and after and compare them to deicide what type of chemical reaction it was.  

Obstacles

Some challenges that might be faced when integrating this activity into the classroom are time to complete the activity in one class period and also providing the proper saftey gear for each student.  

References

About.com. (2010). Theory of relativity. Retrieved from http://physics.about.com/od/relativisticmechanics/Theory_of_Relativity

Department of Physics, University of Tennessee. (2010). Albert einstein and the theory of relativity . Retrieved from http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/einstein.html

Earbot.com. (2010, June 4). Our World. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/user/MyEarbot

Lightman, A. (2005, June). Relativity and the cosmos. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/relativity/