Stage 1 Physics: Practice Questions.

9 Science: Test on electricity and heat on edmodo (yikes we didn’t change the default correct answers on 2 questions – our (Zoe’s and mine) excuse is that we had an awfully hard time getting that test up and running over the school network. In the end we had to take it home and assign it) Also gave some of the class the chance to watch the homework video before tomorrow’s sound extravaganza. Those who complain most vociferously didn’t take up the opportunity. Marked the test for my class now need to go back and look at how the students who watched the videos at home did compared to the rest of the class. I also have to follow up two students who were there and doing the test on edmodo but didn’t submit it.

8 Science: Slime here’s the activity slime common task 2012 and the power point that has taken us most of the way Explanation Does it Matter. We still have one double to go on this investigation. Students were by and large really good about making the slime even though clearly excited and required a bit of hard work to listen to the verbal instructions. I had those students who hadn’t watched the video do a short worksheet on the topic before they could start on the slime, not quite enough of an incentive to watch the video although lots of students told me why they couldn’t. The room was pretty clean at the end. We make our other slimes and test them on Friday.

Stage 1 Physics: Last official lesson time to complete investigation report into rocket launch speeds. Started the trip to Mars assignment. Home work is to make sure both will be ready to submit at the end of Friday’s lesson – the lesson will be spent on the tasks. Looking forward to seeing the planning.

Stage 2 Physics Tute: Exam questions – tough derivation. Practical reports. I had to go and be in photos for the new web site so I missed out on some of the time 🙁

10 Science: the class did well on Monday calculating speed. Today we did an investigation looking at measuring constant speed. This was submitted at the end for assessment. I was able to record how well organised some of the class were.

Stage 1 Physics: Writing the report on the practical investigation. The students need to ask the difficult questions. Some made great headway others wrote the word hypothesis.

9 Science: I did a lot of organising to allow the class to fit in the investigation into conduction. It worked. We got it finished. Now I have some more work to do to get a bit more thought into answers overall. There were some very good ideas around the class but we didn’t quite manage to pin them down into a really good statement about the effects of different materials on conduction. It is early in the year and we can look at tapping this idea more when we look at electrical conduction. Home work … Edmodo video on electrical conduction.

8 Science: matter and the effects of heat on matter. I believe we got the idea across most of the class but I didn’t have time at the end for a plenary so I’ll put it up front next time. The class generally enjoyed the investigations, Bunsen burners, and bizarrely we had a chocolate sale part way through. I’ve collected the books to check for understanding in their responses. Home work … a video on phase changes in matter. Next up slime as an assessed investigation.

Friday was a PD day.  I did a bit part in one of the learning sessions looking at using questions at different levels –  a lesson I’d previously done with this year’s year 8 class was the background for it. That was fun. I also did some work with another two teachers around developing a course based around making learning objectives explicit – again this will be something my year 8s will take part in making work. The Science faculty used the rest of the day to progress our units for years 8 and 9 towards fitting the activities and objectives to the Australian Curriculum, the easy part, and then documenting, linking etc, the time consuming part. Overall it was a very positive day where everyone in Science came out with new ideas to implement.

Back to teaching today – hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend.

First up a post I’m a bit late in making – the best of the animations about chemical reactions from my year 9s.

Good one Land T

Stage 1 Physics: Well this was a blast – we were launching rockets. Put my frown on to those students who hadn’t attempted to design the investigation before hand.  Otherwise  a positive session – most students were impressed by the height of the air-rockets but the water rockets let us down. Anyhow they collected data – some groups were quite innovative (I wasn’t saying no to any ideas as the design was theirs.) We had heights of about 60 m for the air rocket and times of flight of about 8 seconds. The task is work out the launch speed using the equations of motion. The investigation will be written up in class time. Investigation 1

Stage 2 Physics Tute: First up we worked on some questions from the text about gravity and satellites as they felt a little underdone in that area. Then students used the time to work on their investigation reports into circular motion – can’t find how to do standard deviation from a graph using excel in the new OS, not even the microsoft support page could help). Finally we worked through some practice test questions.

10 Science: Most of the class wasn’t there today. This was the lesson where they were to finish their information package – about ways to save their preferred marine organism through encouraging people to reduce their CO2 out put. So I’ve got a few to give feedback to for next lesson and the rest will only get the one shot. Car Crashes is our next topic.

10 Science: Planning and developing the promotional package around protecting the oceans for the students choice of marine animal.

9 Science: Completed report on the affects of colour on heat loss practical. I took photos of the student’s books to assess. Home work – video on electricity to watch and comment on for next week.

Stage 1 Physics: Questions using the equations of motion and problem solving techniques. Home work – investigation design

9 Science: Investigation into the effects of colour on cooling (radiation of heat). Students designed their investigations. Home work – heat rap on edmodo

8 Science: Properties of gases. A few groups got their can crushing test to work to show that gases exert pressure. Particle theory of matter given. Home work – watch and respond to video on edmodo.

Stage 1 Physics: Far too few watched the video. We completed the acceleration by gravity write up and began to design the rocket launch investigation – completing their planned procedure is home work (we’ll have missed three doubles in three weeks)

Stage 2 Physics tutorial: Questions on satellite motion. Pop quiz on the derivation of the the banking angle formula. A complex graphing problem from the book. And lots of advice about reviewing covered material regularly, setting time aside to do the homework questions and reading through practicals before hand.

10 Science: second lesson looking at causes of some human induced ocean changes and how they could be prevented. Then I use random groups to share what they had uncovered with each other. Then formed another series of groups, that they hadn’t already grouped with and shared what they now knew. The content wasn’t great by any count but I’m going to keep pressing these type of processes to develop some kind of accountability to each other about their learning.

Year 10 Science: the class looked at the information they already knew about their ocean creature and used it to make some basic predictions about how it would fair under warmer or more acidified oceans. The next step was doing a little internet search into causes of warming and acidified oceans. We’d already covered this to a great extent through practical investigations, videos and explanations. Next lesson we look at ways to prevent these and then I’ll organise groups to talk and then send ambassadors – I’m going to become rapidly unpopular as I’m going to randomly group them for this part of the exercise.

Year 9 Science : A case of well that could have gone better but it also could have gone worse. So many different things to do, students catching up on the home work, and the test first up. (still having lots of issues around edmodo functioning appropriately. I’ll have to contact them again. There are definite problems around the app). So I spent the lesson on my toes moving from small group to small group to keep them somewhere on track. The lava lamp construction worked okay but would have been much better as a starter rather than having to come in the middle as it did through all the catching up. I’ve left a couple of things to do next time at the start as a recap and did a plenary at the end – most of the class were quite clear about the ways to move energy. The homework is on edmodo again and is a rap about moving heat that I purchased. Zoe’s class have already started to comment on it. I think they liked it.