Monthly Archives: May 2013

Thursday Week 16

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This is my last day at school for this week – tomorrow I’m at the Educational Development Center to do some learning about using the Australian Science Curriculum. Well more about integrating the features that are now part of the curriculum such as Science as a Human Endeavour and Our place in Asia. I hate being away for a school day as I hate setting relief lessons. I try to make them interesting but the more interesting they are the more that can go wrong.

10 B Science: Today we were producing copper from it’s ore (as outlined on earlier power point and the task booklet). I gave the class a little bit of a reminder about paying attention when the task is explained the first time. It worked for today at least. The students were well organised and I was asked much more interesting questions than is normal. The class needed no further whole class instruction – I knew they were capable of this. Anyway they enjoyed the change from copper carbonate to copper sulphate in the sulphuric acid – it is a great colour change with a lot of fizz. This reminds me I only had to remind a couple of people about wearing their safety glasses – bliss! Many groups produced quite a mass of copper when they electrolysed their solution. The only help I needed to give here was organising ways for the copper strips to remain apart. Not one group plugged their leads into the AC sockets of the power supply. We’re drying the copper strips over the weekend to weigh on Monday to find out how much of our ore we collected as copper – I did tell them that we were doing the process used to purify copper and that copper was being added to the solution from the other electrode but the process of weighing and calculating will be useful. Test is Tuesday – second run with edmodo this time in a computer room so should be less issues with network. Something won’t quite work but it’s hard to tell what without a real test – I learned a lot from the Year 8 run through and hope to do so on Tuesday too. Here are a few photos (I’m starting to remember)

IMG_0963

Novel use for a tripod

Novel use for a tripod

 

Keep those strips apart

Keep those strips apart

Not sure about the test tube holder but everything else looks good. Note the gloves, am I over conscious about safety. Just watched a video from a UK school - acids and not a safety goggle in sight - shudder moment.

Not sure about the test tube holder but everything else looks good. Note the gloves, am I over conscious about safety. Just watched a video from a UK school – acids and not a safety goggle in sight – shudder moment.

10 F Science: We did an abridged version of the copper refining investigation with students carrying out the electrolysis. Results not as good this time around but most of the class actually got involved and saw the process in action. Again lots of fuss and bother from the half of the class who usually provide it. Lost the pencils I keep for students to use to someone – I know who but didn’t know it had happened until the afternoon, sigh. Well done to those students who recorded weights and observations well.

Stage 2 Physics Tutorial: Revision for the test mostly after asking for any questions on their new topic. They all said they’d understood it well and gave me some examples. Test revision mainly we went through some past exam questions – some straight forwards and others quite tricky. For the tricky ones we practiced strategies for getting the most out of them even if you can’t see your way through to end. This involved the usual problem solving techniques of making clear all of the information given and finding which parts could allow you to find something else, reading the question thoroughly for clues, usually there, and thinking clearly about what the question is asking. The group were a bit flat today. We went through the applications for the electric and magnetic fields sections to make sure they could explain them, but they were reluctant to commit any thing to paper. I sent them home with 2 older tests and instructions to see me if they found any parts they couldn’t do. They also have access to their revision guides. Their test is next week.

A little note on Year 8 Science – I assessed their stained slides, some were labelled in ways that were hard to read and there were the group of girls who sat back last time. Anyway here are the images and assessments (very brief)

Stained slide feed back

Wednesday Week 16

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Stage 1 Physics: Tutorial today examining questions about work, energy and power. The class were a bit worried when they needed to use some of the 1D motion equations before or after they calculated energy … I’ve got some more practice like this lined up when we do revision. Energy questions Energy Questions Part 2

On Friday I won’t be there, or at least that’s the plan – going to do some training about planning with the Australian Curriculum. So here’s the task the students are doing. They should have already carried out most of their research but some won’t have. ssues investigation energy in space   Also here is the revision booklet I’ve handed out. exam revision

10 F Science: The objective of today’s lesson was to smelt some copper and discuss the chemistry – as a displacement reaction. Lots of fuss and bother at the start – I have plans to change this next semester when the topics get a little less intense – so some groups managed to do the smelting while others chose not to be involved. We were supposed to be forming copper through electrolysis next time but we’d have a great deal of problems getting it done in time so I’m going to do some reviewing work and start them thinking about polymers.

8 Science: Trial test using edmodo on Cells. The edmodo side mostly stood up but a few times people’s signal dropped out and I had a gaggle of students who couldn’t remember their learn link log in (they’d been using somebody elses!) and had done nothing about it. They’ll be heading down to the library in home group tomorrow to fix that up. Also the network crashed out for a few people and they didn’t get to submit. Some parts worked in a different way than I’d expected and the students taught me how to do some parts. Overall though the students were okay about doing their test that way and checked their results at the end with thought – they were interested to see what they might have got wrong. I’ve gone through the tests and marked the parts that couldn’t be done automatically (I’ll add more parts like that next time). The best was 19/19, and the worst 5/19 with most at the low end which suggests more about a lack of revision for homework rather than anything wrong with the test. edmodo cells quiz We then discussed Friday’s task cells an ebook task which involves using the iPads again but this time in a less pressure situation. (Try not to notice the typos in that task – it was put together in a short time. Finally we made stained wet mount slides of onion cells How to stain a slide. I got to see lots of successful ones but some students didn’t get to make one – cheek cells next week will be their final option. I’m going to mark the slides made (quite leniently) and hopefully – if we can get the digital camera for the microscope and the only computer in the entire school that it actually talks to working together – I’ll take digital photos of their slides and post them.

The next post after this will be lots of photos for Friday’s task.

Tuesday Week 16

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Stage 1 Physics: A shortened double after the reconciliation assembly. Reviewed how machines can provide a mechanical advantage by using the same energy but distributing force and distance evenly. I didn’t get to review our practicals from last Friday – so that’s still on my to do list. We have so far dealt mainly with energy and power in a mechanical sense. In my original plan I was going to look at electrical power and heat too but I’ve run out of time. We did a practical around students estimating the power of the sun by ratio comparison with 100 W globe, the class achieved similar results about 2 x 10Λ26 Watts. We have our exam next Friday, so after completing the issues investigation this Friday it’ll be revision from then on.

10 B Science: Metal production … Did a bit of a lead in (see yesterday’s power point for 10 F) then we reduced iron on a match head, they enjoyed seeing the mix become magnetic. Students recorded their findings. We then reduced copper from copper oxide. This worked really well lots of good discs of copper, although the students seemed less impressed except for the test tubes that melted. Students then had time to finish their reaction rate practical report, some chose to do this – the others should be completing it for homework as I’m marking it on Tuesday after the test.

Friday Week 15

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Year 8 Science: Learning about cells today, the differences between animal and plant cells, the parts of the cells and the jobs of those parts. Here are the tasks and presentations plus we watched a video from Clickview about cells to help determine the jobs of the different parts of the cells. The students should have a password to access Click View at home but I’m not sure what that is I’ll have to look it up. How small can living things be, Blank cell diagrams, The Cell parts.

10 F Science: Carrying out the reaction rate practical we prepped for yesterday. Very lock step I hand delivered the various acid concentrations and carried out one myself for those who did not wish to take part in the practical activity. End result we got times and calculated rates for 2M, 1M and 0.5 M HCl. Next lesson we’ll plot the graphs on excel and I’ll see if they can tell me if there is a trend so they can write a conclusion, provide a reason based on particle theory and do a small evaluation before we get into metal production. Concentration and Rates of Reaction

Stage 1 Physics: I always have too much to do. Tests were given back, mostly not bad. We then carried out two investigations side by side – one in to elastic collisions using the air track where we used iPads to determine initial and final speeds to determine kinetic energy before and after the collision. At the same time other students investigated the energy in a bow which they recorded on excel and I printed the resultant graphs for everyone in the class. Second half of the lesson involved students researching for their energy issues investigation.  Some are finding good resources. issues investigation energy in space

Thursday Week 15

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10 B Science: We got through quite a lot today. Started off watching the media pieces made last week during year 10 work experience (we expected to have half classes but lots of students didn’t organise work experience). I got the students to record some of the following words Creative, Informative, Professional, Skillful. They could use all the words or three, two, one or none of the words but they were the only things they were allowed to record next to the number for the video. I later went around and photographed their responses on my iPad so that I had an anonymous record to summarise for each group. Next up I used a simulation of the particle model to discuss the idea of what needs to happen for a chemical reaction to occur, and why they therefore might happen more rapidly when heated. The class then took themselves through a practical exercise about concentrations and reaction rates, collecting time data. They are expected to complete part of their report for homework. The conclusion should discuss how collisions between particles, chemical reactions, and reaction rates go together.

10 F Science: Same activity with the media pieces, this class were a bit less willing to watch the pieces their peers had produced and vocally derogatory about most of them, however they did follow the only record a combination of the four words which means they did have to think about things differently. Next, after a while of calming down, we looked at the simulation about particle theory and started to prepare for the practical around reaction rates and concentration which we’ll try to carry out tomorrow.

Stage 2 Physics Tutorial: Handed back the ‘tests’ from last week and this time around we started with questions 11 and 25 from the 2010 exam. They were more successful this time but there were still a number of lazy explanations and had forgotten that straight line graphs indicate proportionality. Meanwhile I had my stage 1 Physics students working of the energy of a bow practical and then researching for his issues investigation into energy sources for space. After the test (which was quite large) we revisited the moving coil loud speaker as they didn’t think it had been clearly gone through in their lessons. I went through an explanation and handed out a few printouts to help. I’ll get them to explain it back to me next week.

Wednesday Week 15

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Stage 1 Physics: Students working on the tutorial paper about kinetic and potential energy, as well as power and mechanical advantage – working out through energy. Unfortunately I couldn’t be there for this lesson due to a meeting, so I’ll have to catch up on how they did on Friday.

10 F Science: Again I couldn’t be there so I left worksheets – one on the combination of magnesium and oxygen, which we’d done as a practical, and another on writing word equations. The relief teacher helped them a lot (answers on board) but they were pleasant and willing to write things down off the board so they got a little time off at the end.

8 Science: Argh! Technology. Okay finally we had iMovie on all of the iPods. So we issued them back to the students 8F and 8D to complete their movies from the museum. Things went okay for 8D but for my class… Swapping iPods so they didn’t know which one they had, their pictures and videos being wiped, the iPod just not turning on, some of the iPods had all of their pictures and videos wiped. Very, very frustrating. Two groups were able to progress so I stopped the rest and we went on with creating wet mount slides of algae cells How small can living things be,

Apart from my awful grammar in the title this worked quite well and we created some nice observational drawings of the cells of the algae I brought in from home. (Quite a few lazy ones too). Next up we’ll be looking at the structure of cells and what the parts do before examining onion cells and human cells in the upcoming week.

Here are some of the museum movies. Nope sorry I won’t as they’re too big! Which is a pity as there are some good ones. 6 from 8 D, 4 from 8F and one joint movie. The collections from some of my more reliable movies were those that were lost. This sort of thing keeps happening to me when I try to get students to produce multimedia pieces.

 

Tuesday Week 15

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Stage 1 Physics: Lots to do this morning. We finished off a practical for Friday (the beginning of the emphasis on conservation of energy). We completed a skills and application task. Next up we used Skate Park Physics from PhET to again emphasis that idea of conservation – the energy at the start is the energy at the end. The students then used iPads for a roller coaster simulation called Coaster Physics which allowed them to follow the energy change over the journey along the roller coaster. Some of the students thought it was a little too convincing and experienced a little motion sickness, didn’t stop them watching ‘though. We reviewed the formula for energy and power. We started another practical (at least set it up so they knew what they were trying to achieve) looking at the energy involved in a bow. I won’t be there tomorrow (SMAF meeting) so they’ll be working on a tutorial paper without me, I’ve left some hints on the board.

10 B Science: Exothermic and endothermic reactions. I revamped the practicals I used with the other class as this group are more focused and able to follow instructions. So the new Power points look like this. Exothermic Reactions Endothermic Reactions. We completed the investigation into the reaction between magnesium and an acid (hydrochloric in this case) the students recorded quite well, we got temperature changes of about 8 degrees C on average and they mostly constructed useful graphs. A hand full took a while to get started and didn’t get their graphs drawn – expectation is this will happen for homework. I used the demo from “Watch This!” with 40g anhydrous citric acid, 50 g sodium bicarbonate in 60 ml of water and the Pascoe temperature probe running through Science Workshop to plot the temperature change as it happened. Some were impressed that we could do this which is quite sad but we don’t have the updated Pascoe software to put on the new laptops we have in science and are unlikely to get it, I think I’m the only one to use it, so it’ll have to be demos rather than class activities for the time being. We achieved a respectable -5 degrees C, I’ve had this down to -9 once. Finally we started to summarise what we have learned about different types of reactions Summary of Chemical Reactions

Monday Week 15

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Stage 2 Chemistry Tutorial: Actually some of the group started today with a little twenty minute Physics test they missed on Thursday – I’ve got those to mark. One had a stage 1 Physics test to do having missed Friday (he does specialist Maths then). The rest of the group worked on this weeks tutorial paper about calculating enthalpy reactions for combustion, neutralisation and solvation. Some of the class needed a reminder about how to calculate moles when provided with a mass and a molecular mass, otherwise the paper didn’t cause too many issues. Every body got through at least the first question. For the second half of our double we worked on the first part of the issues investigation – collecting resources and evaluating them. Some of the students were still trying to choose a question that was also an issue at the start but I think we’ve got that sorted now.

10 B Science: Decomposition and displacement reactions today. The former I did with a couple of demonstrations and working through balancing chemical equations and conservation of matter to determine what the products were. I did the Hoffman voltameter complete with ‘pop’ test for the hydrogen gas produced and the decomposition of sugar with conc sulphuric acid – picture or two below. The class did a small practical task where they used zinc to displace hydrogen from sulphuric acid and copper from copper sulphate. Again we used equations but I’ll have to recap on this later.

 

A carbon pillar

A carbon pillar

10 F Science: Exothermic and endothermic reactions. Demonstrations of Exothermic reactions (including carbon pillar – decomposition of sugar. This time we could use a fume hood rather than doing outside), and magnesium in hydrochloric acid using Pascoe equipment to have a graph of temperature drawn on the interactive white board as the reaction progressed. Here’s the presentation that went along with it.   Exothermic Reactions Endothermic reactions were next and the class were to carry out a brief investigation, demonstrate their measuring skills and write a brief heavily scaffolded practical report. Exothermic Reactions Some of the class achieved that.   I was also going to show the media pieces we created last week but ran out of time.

 

Friday Week 14

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Year 8 Science: Very complex session today lots of different tasks being done. Finishing off our Geology homework by identifying the rocks collected as either igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. The sedimentary rocks are the easiest to identify and we didn’t have too many samples that could be igneous (Surprisingly no Victor Harbor Granite). Meanwhile other students were doing a more scaffolded version of the What are Rocks? Essay, to allow them to achieve a passing grade by showing some knowledge of the formation of rocks that could be linked to a knowledge of the rock cycle. Project based tasks, as the Becoming a Geologist task was, depend a great deal on keeping students on task and getting them started in a lesson as soon as possible. They were all keen to get stamps on their sheet and to do tests on the rock samples and they loved having access to the iPads as a research tool but for lots of them that wasn’t enough to be engaged and progressing. I have to rethink obviously but we did lots of fun activities along the way and the students thought they were fun and enjoyed them, linked them to our learning. Anyway moving on for the moment. The rest of the lesson was spent learning how to use microscopes (or at least starting the process). I concentrated a lot on the students achieving a focused image (just of newsprint to start with) because lots of times students give up trying to get an image or assume the first thing they see is what they are supposed to be looking at. They’ve all received an instruction to never accept an image that isn’t as focused as the one they saw today with the newsprint. During this time I had some pond water up on the video microscope – a nematode moved across the screen at the perfect moment when I was asking them how small they thought life could be – and we saw quite a lot of tiny bivalves as well as some single celled organisms with beating cilia (at least in my lack of biological training estimation). The students finished off drawing small parts or whole animals that they studied under the microscopes (next time around we’ll see how we go taking pictures with iPad/iPods instead – speaking of iPods still installing iMovie on those that didn’t have it so we can’t finish of the museum movies just yet). I’ve attached some photos of some parts of the Becoming a Geologist task and drawings through the microscopes.

 

 

I learned how to create an ebook using a few different apps on the iPads (I already knew but the method I had was slower and more convoluted) I wonder where I can go with that with the class?

10 F Science: Last lesson on the media project. Disappointingly only 2 submitted and only one of those had one of my class as a team member. Another group were nearly at the end (their task got quite involved and they were putting a lot of time and energy into creating it – they should get a chance to finish it next week). I’m planning on showing all of them to my 10 classes over the week to get “marked”. At least this way they can think about what things are valuable in the task.

Stage 1 Physics: Test on Waves – Skills and Applications task. This took most of the lesson (about an hour) I’ve marked most of the questions, just the last using data questions to go, and the results are widely varied and I probably could have predicted them before hand. I have a bunch of students who put in time and effort and a bunch that do less so and it looks at this stage as if that’s how the test is split. Unfortunately the students who struggle in the test situation are also the ones who don’t submit the companion piece and get no benefit from showing their learning on that task. We finished off with an energy practical (conceptual physics about kinetic and potential energy where they were “betting”, no money changed hands, on the outcome of the pendulum bob for different set ups.

Thursday Week 14

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10 B Science: Media projects final session. Out of the three half classes I collected 6 media presentations. For this piece students didn’t have to research they needed to use a audio visual media. From the students of 10 B we got four of the six presentations which is nice. A group did a really good job of creating a radio interview about yawning using the garage band app but they kept calling each other by name so for privacy reasons I can’t really put that one up here. One of the presentations was completed but wouldn’t move from iMovie to the picture gallery so we haven’t yet taken it off that iPad. Anyway here’s the two that I can put on.

popcorn and  stars

10 F Science: Fourth lesson for this amalgam of 3 classes. Probably a few groups look like they are on target to finish if they are not at the careers expo tomorrow. Overall it took a lot more teacher input to progress most of the teams.

Stage 2 Physics Tute: With three quarters of the class at an excursion and a practice test to undertake in this session it was quite a different session. We also got to look more closely at magnetic fields and their effects on current carrying wires. The students still have to read the section on loudspeakers.

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