Last night it was pointed out to me what a good way of documenting my practise this blog is so I’m starting it up once more as a daily thing but I’m going to try to limit the time I spend doing it.

10 Science: Looked at the chemistry of our metal production by electrolysis practical from yesterday with an emphasis on determining the chemical changes that took place and creating a word to model this. I then put the question to the class about how we could electroplated zinc on to a copper coin by electricity and we worked our way to an idea. I’m going to use a plating solution that I came across and then we’re going to alloy the zinc and copper to give our coin a brassy finish. It worked okay when I trialled it.

9 Science: the great fish body shape investigation. Long tubes, lots of water and plasticine shapes. A couple of boys over excited by the freedom and some groups of girls who really got involved and had fun. Objective one fulfilled. Now they have the task of designing an animal for their ecosystem and some glossary terms for home work.

8 Science: making wet mount slides. A lesson I really get into. I grow some mean algae in my pond. Unfortunately we no longer have a video microscope that operates with out computers and I’m still to be successful getting a picture with an iPad so no photos of the seriously cool views of algae we had. Lots of detail visible. I don’t think the students were as impressed as I was. I kept telling them how good a job they had done and they would look at me as though I was crazy. Homework was for the laggards who hadn’t finished their take home test to do so or do it on Friday lunch.

Prof Bob. Hill filling in for Brian Schmidt.
Found out this morning that there is an iPad app for the Pasco software and an air attachment so no leads etc… Now have to keep persuading others to use this.

Key note address: Living with fire.

History of oxygen in atmosphere and then onto what we now know about the history and evolution of flowering plants.
All early fossilised plants served as charcoal. Fire a critical part in their early evolution.
Oxygen level below 13% can’t light a fire. Above 23% anything will burn anywhere – all vegetation. Above 30% spontaneous combustion.
Fire a very important part of the environment until about 60 million years ago less significant … Reduction of oxygen and climatic changes. Extremely high CO2 at the same time . No ice, tropical, forests at poles. Also very wet. No dry season.
These were the conditions in Australia until about 35 million years ago … Became more seasonal, temperature changed, less CO2 more fire. Current around Antarctica stopped movement of heat south from equator. Much larger temperature gradient. Summer winter rainfall boundary moved northward faster than Australia. Low nutrients also helped create a vegetation that was predisposed to burning when fire returns.
Poor nutrients and drying increase leaf litter. Eucalyptus are fire promoting. Xanthorrea is also another excellent example.
Epicormic shoots. Eucalypts do best when high fire frequency.
Fire plays a large impact on the type of vegetation cover. Big land surface of the Earth.
700000 definitely trees on the nullabor as tree kangaroos. Palm valley etc.
IncreAse in eucalypt about 200000 years ago so could it have been homo erectus using fire?
Diets of emus and genyornis before genyornis became extinct .. Emu diet became restricted C3 vs C4 plants materials. Converted drought adapted to fire adapted ?
Europeans interrupted the fire cycles created by original occupants. Including addition of annual weeds.

Dr Roslyn Prinsley national advisor science mathematics education industry.
Twitter feed @conasta
Big Science Competition? High percentage of students find Science interesting and think it can change the world (voluntary). But they don’t particularly want to work in Science.
What work do Scientists and Mathematicians do? Jobs growing 1.5 times faster than other areas. Important skills active working, critical thinking, complex problem solving and creative problem solving STEM graduates better equipped ( employers survey). Also STEM positions in employment increasing. Growing interest in supporting Science in schools. Scientific literacy of country needs to be lifted. 1118 occupations in which STEM grads work in over 600 industries.
Not a lot of positive support for a mention of Christopher Pine as Education minister.

CSIRO Education outreach still functioning and challenges etc still running.
Prof Lynn Koviac .. Food and nutrition flagship.
Science it takes guts!
Australia is getting older and fatter. 1 in 3 obese children 26% of children overweight or obese. Links to lots of metabolic diseases.
Challenge .. Longer healthier life … For the health system.
Chronic disease will account for 80% of disease burden … Huge cost problems.
Huge increase in proportion of population obese since 1980
Thinking about mega trends and what they mean for health.

Semmelweis and hand washing as an example.

Addressing the challenges through delivery modes, efficiency, prevention and new technologies.
3D printing of food.
Genomics science challenge, proteinomics, etc … Molecular biology of selves and how it interacts with genes. Epigenomics. Adding methyl groups to change activation of gene. Data deluge
Diet exposure lots of it is bio active. Has opportunity to interact with our genes that produce 100000 proteins 300 to 500 thousand metabolises. Also extended genome through microorganism.
Role of gut nutrient and fluid uptake, immune tolerance, defence against infections, signalling to the brain.
Human Micro Iomega Project first map of microbes 100000 species on an healthy person.
Might be worth finding video the hungry microbiome
Methyl DNA to produce a test for colorectal cancer. Blood test for people refusing feacal screening test.

Prof Andrew White intriguing chemists and annoying computer scientists cqc2t.org
Quantum computers
Two weird things about Quantum mechanics wave particle duality, entanglement
Half silvers mirror experiment 2 Pairs of. Been done with particles as large as buckyballs.
Bells inequalities
Culinary Analogy for entanglement. Using cake sampling in ovens on conveyor sampled randomly.
Einstein hidden variable theory …. Faster than light information.
Qubit
Electronic potential energy surfaces
Quantum chemistry
agx.white@gmail.com

Elizabeth Saunders. The differentiated science class.
Things to consider ….
Diversity, academic goals in content and skills, use of resources, choice/allocation, presentation, open/closed, formal/informal, abstract/concrete, individual/group/whole class, time length, assessment, homework, timeframe.
Options Activity grids bloom’s and gardner’s. Example of a year 9 communications Technology – I’ve done similar things. The trick is how to assess. Maybe look at the blooms level tasks and keep notes records. Zoe and I did something very similar but we did need to structure our choices better.
I thing there was a bit more money in this school than I’m used to having available.
Could you do this electronically?
We often do this process with points allocations for students to use in choice .. Higher points are awarded for create and evaluate tasks and less points for remember and understand with the task set so that more time was needed to do the higher order thinking skills tasks. Scaffold the completed task more completely would help too.
That’s a thought using the grid for homework setting. Of course homework would have to be done.
General questioning skills are a god idea too.
Just mentioned the points system.
Showed a maths example which looks like part of the whole maths I ran with middle school kids. I’ve been differentiating more than I thought.
Learning contracts … Used those but we barely have the time to do the negotiation. Which the presenter just said too.
Universal Design of Learning
This is big picture planning
Multiple means of representation, multiple means of expression, multiple means of engagement.
Choice rich tasks sometimes are definitely not enough….

Need to get a grain mill.

Digital leaders workshop
Looking at google drive at which I am a neophyte but developing user.
All my year 9 students have a google account and I’ve shared with them and created google forms
They are supposed to share with each other …. We’re not all quite there yet.
This presentation run by students Lachlan and Zac from my HG.
They took us through the types of documents they can create and how to share files.
Going to be looking at the allow comment function (haven’t used yet). Good way for students to upload their work and the teacher can attach comments. Can also used to resolve problems. Looks useful I’ll have to check it out.
You can colour code you folders.
Right clicking on documents shows lots of options. You can put Youtube videos directly into a presentation. Just an insert video and then search youtube.

Next up photoshop….
Presented by two year 8 students
Can be used to make posters, magazine, covers image into images. The students showed how to make a photoshopped image in a few minutes

Next up using media in stage 2….
Presented by Robert in year 12
Advocate the use of our media resources for use by stage 2 students.
Showed some research project outcomes created using electronic media.

Last two sessions in the board room.
StopMotion Maddy and Sophie. Talked about process they went through to make their stop motion … Fruit Race

Health movie about drugs and health.

The students showed clearly how they valued their learning in this area.

Changes to Science Courses at Flinders

Bachelor of Design and Technology Innovation
Involves.
Design. and innovation underpinned by STEM. Eg will be major in a stem subject. Will be scientists and engineers.

Next year engineering will have a common first year.

Australian Qualification Different levels from now on.

Network systems has become network and cyber security. Will contain industry certification

Palaeontology

Lots of potential teaching sites in SA
Ediacara

Emu bay on KI Cambrian 520 mil. Cambrian explosion. Has soft bodies creatures preserved.

October Pedy 120 mil polarised fossils.

Lake Frome Basin 25 mil
Lake Eyre .. Pliocene and Pleistocene

Rocky River KI late Pleistocene . Extinction of mega fauna
Eubanks in Burra region

Naracoorte Caves. Megafauna etc for last 0.5 mil

Megafauna trackways about 200 sites found recently. What animals inhabited same areas at same time?

The Bone Box

Links in different areas of science to the bones and how they are found and treated.
Eg chemistry pH of soils mineralisation isotopic half lives stable isotopes to interpret climate and food sources etc…

Physics
Thermodynamics, luminescence, biomechanics

Earth sciences
Changing environments identification of rock

formations

Everything in the bone box comes from SA research. Come with the information and usually a staff member. Science inquiry skills.
1 class at a time 100 students $5 per student.

Eg speed of movement through footprints in long jump pit. I can do that.

Nanotechnology.
Demoed some nanotechnology materials most of which I already have from teaching a short nano unit to year 9s previously.

Restorative practice exemplars… Bec Cousins presented an example about a Year 9 issue that was resolved through restorative practices.
Asked to respond to google doc here https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BIxFAp5TJtfezCW7_HQeO7tJm6Vp4raRCgS08JQ1d94/edit?usp=sharing
Not iPad friendly but I got a few things recorded.

Next session about the edutech conference. To split into groups to get some of the experiences.
I went to the session looking at how our WAVE program utilises technology to cater for individuals. Presented by Kadri.

Landfll harmonic – beyond amazing – see video.
Interesting perfect storm of desire, hard work and innovation.
20% of students don’t feel connected to their schools. I thought it would have been more.

10 Science finished up with an exercise firstly testing and comparing cleaning cosmetics through a round of investigations where they looked at texture, smell, colour, pH and chemical composition. I intended to tie this in with the soap we made last week but lots of support needed completing the investigation. We also did a quick task to find out about the chemical structure and uses of some chemicals used in cosmetics and then provide the information on posters created on word. The posters submitted were well done.
9 Science investigation into why we eat food …. energy. So we burned foods and calculated the energy released through the increase in temperature of water heated by the food. Home work was to finish the report. The rest of the week was used to do revision tasks around digestion. Test on Friday. Mostly positive results.
8 Science. The great mobile phone disaster project continued. Students have now completed the research and made a decision about whether the materials can be made at home. Next week we’ll be creating the group presentations to class.
11 Physics. Research time and test on waves took up most of this week. We now have to choose the two sources of energy for use in space that will be compared in the presentation. Students have only one more research lesson, rest of the issues investigation is homework.

This week the Year 8 students began a project that we will work through in the Learning Hub. We’re finding out if it is possible to make some of those materials that we take for granted in our society. We also investigated and reported on Chemical Change through a reaction between citric acid and baking soda that becomes very cold and we looked at magnesium and acid followed by a resultant pop test for the hydrogen produced.
Year 9 students began their learning about digestion. We looked at what macronutrients are present in various foods. The digestive processes and system were covered plus some practical evidence that enzymes were indeed involved in the digestion of large food molecules.
Year 10 Science students looked at carbon/organic chemistry and made more cosmetics including some fine looking but very caustic soap.
Stage 1 Physics students began investigating energy through a practical and theory presentations. We have started an investigation into Energy use in Space Exploration. Test on waves is next week.