Stage 1 Physics: Writing up practical reports for their design experiments into momentum. The time was used well by some but none of the groups are as close to completion as I hoped for so they’ve got a bit of homework. unfortunately one group forgot to record the number of their iPad and are having difficulty relocating their video footage for analysis. The students at VET today were set the task of working on the practical report for a lesson equivalent in the time they have to catch up for lessons missed.

10 F Science: Quiet lesson as students started to either organise their communication piece on making your home energy efficient or at least started improved their awareness about what to research. Two lessons left on this topic I collect whatever is produced on Friday. The main aim is for students to show me they understand about energy use and can communicate some scientific information effectively.

8 F Science: Another big lesson – it really is a stretch just having two doubles a week. We looked back at our findings from last time and took it further by combining another two elements – did lots of prep on safety and correct procedure again – magnesium and oxygen. The students hypothesised before hand about whether the product would resemble either of the reactants and then wrote an aim for the investigation that reflected this. They concluded and matched this conclusion to our previous findings for iron and sulphur. We used the analogy of elements being like lego bricks – especially the thin ones that once you pushed them together they become very hard to separate. A bit of an aside into mixtures (now part of year 7) I had 4 investigations prepared but we used up a lot of time settling down on a regular basis so only did two. We looked at dissolving a substance (copper sulphate) in hot water using about the amount that dissolves in 100 ml at 50 degrees – we used water that was a bit hotter. We used the terms solute and solvent to describe the copper sulphate and the water. Students practised correct techniques at using glass rods to help dissolve the solute. We then put them aside – crystals should be there on Friday showing that it is quite easy to separate the mixture. We also looked at filtering with students learning how to correctly fold the filter paper and pour the mix in the filter funnel – forgot to warn against over filling – doh! We discussed how the filter worked and what it could and couldn’t do – homework is for students to post their knowledge about filtering on edmodo plus pictures of the set up taken on their phones. Some didn’t have phones and so I took photos on my iPad.

Stage 1 Physics: Most of today’s lesson was time devoted to analysing and completing the momentum investigations. Lots of different ways of collecting data from the videos made so far. There will be lots for students to discuss in their reports and ways they can suggest improvements to their designs. Latter part of the lesson we started to look at gravity and got as far as demonstrating (two videos one of a feather and ball bearing falling in a vacuum the other of a soft ball and bowling ball dropped from high in a gym, plus a simulation of gravity being dependent on mass and distance) On Friday we’ll finish this off and get to grips with some projectile motion problems. Gravity and Projectile Motion

Some members of this class will be going to Pimpala Primary School to be involved in helping students there do practical investigations, Wednesday week 4,  they just don’t know it yet.

10 B Science: Energy efficient house task – most groups and individuals are well focused and are developing a clear of idea about what they should produce. Managed to talk to a lot of individuals about what insight means to allow them to achieve A grades. Lots of them are enjoying the designing the house part and I have to give gentle reminders about energy efficiency to some groups. Finish of this task is Thursday. Next week they’ll have homework on edmodo which involves watching videos. Did a quick survey and I need to burn about six DVDs to send home in lieu of being able to access edmodo at home. Let me know if one is needed but didn’t come home.

Some members of this class will be going to Pimpala Primary School to be involved in helping students there do practical investigations, Wednesday week 4,  they just don’t know it yet.

Stage 2 Chemistry Tutorial: First up we worked through selected questions from the nomenclature assignment. A few areas we had to look at were isomers, benzene rings and choosing the correct chain, otherwise no problems at this time. Then choosing a topic and creating a question for the final part of the issues investigation. Everyone had a topic and question and were mapping out their paragraphs by the end.

10 B Science: Students continued on with their design for an energy saving house. Most made good progress had to keep reminding a few that they are creating a communication piece and others that you can spend too much time making it pretty and perhaps the energy saving parts are more important. Overall progress is good. Designing an Energy Efficient Home

10 F Science: More scaffolding of the energy saving house task today – a template for recording energy saving ideas (to go along with the house plans from last time) and a video (Energy Conservation) in which we went for a tour through an energy efficient house and the methods that could be used were pointed out. The video was a bit dated and I could point out things that had changed (both good and bad). Next it was over to the students to work on their planning. One group ordered materials for a model and another group did some finding out using a website I gave them. Not a lot of other progress within the class. Designing an Energy Efficient Home

8 Science: Started out with the periodic table – what experiences had the students had with the elements. Not knowing any uses for Gold seemed a bit of a worry at the start but a few more started coming forward – the students annotated their A3 copy of the table, then shared information in a group and then spotted if there were any patterns around how the elements were organised (e.g. top right hand corner were all gases, gold, silver, platinum are close etc..) On to combining elements. We only got one of the two done today – I was focusing in the students writing their own method, following my demonstration and some were a little slow to do this so it dragged out longer than I would have liked. So we combined sulphur and iron and recorded our observations and concluded that when elements are combined we end up with something quite different than either of the elements. Homework remains on edmodo – the power point posted last time shows what we are learning and how we’re doing it. I’ll probably put Daniel Radcliffe singing the elements song up on edmodo. Here’s the powerpoint  It’s Elemental– still developing

10 F Science: Had the house plans to day and managed to have some good conversations with about a third of the class around how they could improve it to lower energy costs. It did provide a little focus and a little scaffolding – I have one more piece of scaffolding to do on Monday and then I have to let them go on their own.

Stage 1 Physics: Most of the group recorded at least some results for their two part investigation – part two using conservation of momentum to find a value that would otherwise be difficult to measure. iPads got a work out recording the videos, using video physics and graphical to determine velocities. Also reports were being put together with detailed methods and tables to collect results. Then it was off to the Noarlunga Ice Rink for the first part where the students had designed a way to show that momentum was conserved in a closed system. All of the methods worked – eventually, some needed a bit of tweaking but that’s good learning for the students. Lots of technology went with us so we could use video physics, and a range finder recording it’s data to Data Studio. I now have a pile of information to upload to edmodo for the students. Also we got to do some skating.

10 B Science: Today was the introduction of the energy efficient house design task. Designing an Energy Efficient Home The class responded really well. Lots of good ideas put forth, lots of effective research carried out on the netbooks. Some students even went back to the Origin Energy calculator site to have a look at the hints there. I don’t think I saw two groups on the same web page as they all approached it from different angles. Lots of the students enjoyed using their Google Sketch skills to design the basic house, others are going to make something more physical. I did reexplain the task several times, mostly because a number in the class get a bit anxious with open ended tasks but things went very smoothly overall. Well done everyone in the class. But only two homeworks handed in so far.

10 F Science: A bit of reexplaining the task. I had the students set up on the computers in DC04 and two of the students really got to grips with the task while another couple had a bit of a go. I think keeping them in the lab with the netbooks will be a better idea as a number of the class behave poorly when working in new situations or with new people around, so I’ve booked the netbooks for next week. I think I also might print off some house plan templates so that they have something to start with and to record any research they do on. This will simplify things to one task at a time and I really should have thought of it at the start.

Stage 2 Physics Tute: Lots done today and the students felt very comfortable with the material at the end. We covered the photoelectric effect with a PhET simulation – which they also have a homework task using this simulation. We looked at how the equations are derived from the phenomena and what the terms mean. We did a few questions using the equations and ideas which went well. Then we looked at how the learning they did on Wednesday fits in to the subject outline and what, particularly, they had to know and do from it. This is the bit where they felt a lot more comfortable. I think they benefited from going through the information twice. I also handed out some of the old scaffolded notes I used before SMAF and a practice test on the previous topic – light as waves. third set of notes pages, 12Pc e-w waves and interference Sum test 2007, second set of notes

Stage 1 Physics: We looked at some simple questions around vectors Vector and projectile quest (questions 1 – 5) and worked through question 9 on the whiteboard. The rest of the time was given over to preparing the practical investigation to start on Friday. I’m concerned about the students who attend VET courses and so miss this lesson because they also never hand in the tutorial tasks or contact me any time out of lesson, makes it difficult for them to succeed.

10 F Science: Looked at fuel cells, particularly the hydrogen fuel cell through a video Ballard Shows How a Fuel Cell Works HowStuffWorks and discussion. We watched twice so we could take a few dot point notes. Then I introduced the final task for the topic – design an energy saving home to save money. Designing an Energy Efficient Home

8 F Science: Started with an exploding tin can to get a picture in their minds of chemicals becoming different chemicals as we started our It’s Elemental unit. Students had to explain what had happened and write post-it-notes to put up – I’ve to write these up to post in the room. We then looked at elements and, (after some messing around with the wrong globe sizes to get the conductivity kits set up so they wouldn’t blow) did a short investigation into the properties of ten elements to show that their properties were not the same. The attached power point is a work in progress as the whole unit will be on their eventually. It’s Elemental Homework is on edmodo – and I’ll print off copies for students who can’t access at home.

If you’re reading this on the Wednesday – on Thursday evening there is a night for parents explaining the role of IT at Wirreanda, how and why we use it and how it can be a great way for parents to see their child’s progress.

10 B Science: The class spent the first (roughly) thirty minutes making sure that each member of their group was an expert on their energy source. Then I divided each group, jigsawed them, so that there were new groups with one member of each previous group. They then shared their learning while the other members of the group took notes. They did this very well from an observers point of view, I moved around and heard lots of detailed explanations of different energy sources. Next up I gave them a short multiple choice quiz on the energy sources which I used to measure how well each person had delivered the information about their source – this took quite a while and more than a little colour coding to assess, however the group looking at biofuels were generally the best while the group looking at nuclear fusion did the least well (this wasn’t a surprise they didn’t progress very far during the three lessons of exploring the energy source) but there was variety in results for each energy source. The class then (I know we jammed a lot in but it didn’t feel rushed today) found a piece of learning from the semester so far (only two weeks) that matched some of the learning objectives for us and handed their books in with the pages marked for me to assess over the holidays. This took a bit of explaining but I feel it’s a good first step along the way to using the assessment rubrics at Stage 1 and 2.

10 F Science: I set aside the first twenty minutes or so for the groups to organise their learning (as per previous class), one group had answers to all the parts of the scaffolding I provided for them. The rest of the lesson was spent presenting that information to the class as a whole either by telling or displaying electronically some how. I did this rather than jigsawing as the groups were very uneven – lots of absences in this class. The rest of the class were supposed to take notes – some did. I’ve now got to formulate a little simple multiple choice quiz that will do the same as for the previous group but at not quite so a demanding level.

Stage 2 Physics Tutorial: The Mid-Year Exam! Action packed – I had to start them during my previous class work around my yard duty, organise a sick students (from another class) to be wheelchaired to the sickroom and continue supervising all through lunch. I did my own version of the solutions during this time and the exam seemed pretty straight forward.