10-28-08 Midterm Presenatations Continued

We continued our midterm presentations in class today. We had presentations about mixtures, and elephant toothpaste. These two presentations have been the two most ineresting thus far. The mixtures activity creatred "Ooblak" which is a mixture of cornstarch and water that is really cool! The elephant toothpaste was also very exciting because it used yeast and hydrogen peroxide to create a chemical reaction with ALOT of foam. Very fun class today.

10-23-08 Midterm presentations

Today we listened to midterm presentations from our classmates. Some of the presentations included mixtures, bouyancy, and living and nonliving things. The activity on mixtures was especially interesting because it allowed the students to make jello in the classroom, and rather than waiting for the jello to get stiff, the presenters had jello cups for the audience. Overall, the class was spend well as the students who were not presenting got many good ideas for future lesson plans.

10-21-08 Leaping Egg

We started this class with questions and clarifying many of the upcoming assignments. This took alot of the classtime, although it seemed it was necessary. Towards the end of class we did an activity called "Leaping Egg" in which we used air to move a ping pong ball from one glass to another. It was unique because the shape of the glass allowed for the air to move around the glass and move the ping pong ball the opposite direction we were blowing.

10-16-08 Continue Midterm...

Today we had another work day to help further develop our Midterm projects we wil be presenting next week. It was a reltively slack day because my group had mostly everything finished prior to class. We fine tuned our lesson plan and added a few extra details. Also we took the time to ask Dr. Ezrailson our questions and clarified our goal. Overall it was a productive day.

10-14-08 Lesson Planning

Today in class, we began directing our thoughts towards our upcoming midterm projects. We got together in groups and discussed our lesson plans. My group specifically is planning on teaching forces of motion. Our activity will be based on how far a balloon can make a straw move down a string, and the amount of time it takes to get there.

10-14-08 Cyber Bee

Our assignment to do before class today was to check out the Cyber Bee website. This website is very interesting, as many different activities could be implemented into the classroom. This website could serve as an excellent teacher resource as I will hopefully enter into my first year of teaching this next fall. This website could easily be linked to many subject areas and topics.

10-13-08 Web Seminar Make-up

Since i was unable to attend the Web Seminar, I looked through the website that was provided via Dr. Ezrailson and search through the powerpoint presentation. By studying the presentation I learned that stars are giant balls of burning gases (Helium and Hydrogen mostly.) I also learned about the life of a star and the different rates in which stars burn gas. We classify these stars according to three characteristics: Brightness, temperature, and composition. I also learned how planets form around each star, which in turn made me wonder about possible life somewhere? I think there has to be, there are SO many stars just in our galaxy...let alone the entire universe!