Week 12

Week 12: 

 1.) This week in the lab, we discussed how to be an effective teacher in terms of science education. One particular part of our discussion that stuck out to me was when we talked about ensuring that students know how to test their hypothesis or find the answers to their questions rather than focusing on the memorization of content. In an activity, we used observation in order to identify the properties of different objects. Some of the objects that our groups tested were clay, an eraser, a marble, a straw, chalk, foil, a cork, and a pipe cleaner. My group identified the weight, volume, length, and ability of these objects to float. I was very surprised that the chalk didn't float during our experiment. However, when we broke it into smaller pieces, it did take longer to sink. I was also intrigued by the results of the foil in terms of its ability to float. When the foil was flat, it floated. But it sank when we squished it into a ball. Finally, we discussed ways to determine if a nail was made out of aluminum or metal. Since the aluminum foil floated in our experiment, we thought that maybe an aluminum nail would float. We also considered putting the nails in a microwave to see which would spark. The metal would be more likely to spark. 

2.) So far, I have found our learning on these chemistry topics to be very interesting. I have a general idea about a lot of the concepts from my middle and high school experiences, but I do not remember having any discussions or completing activities on them in elementary school. I thought that the activity that we completed in class would work very well in an elementary setting. This is because it didn't have an emphasis on the content necessarily, which may be confusing for elementary-age students, but instead focused on encouraging students to make observations to learn about the properties of the different objects. Teaching students how to find an answer to a question and make observations sets them up to be successful when learning more complicated science concepts. Through the activity, students are also able to learn basic ideas about density and expand their knowledge about the properties of different objects. 

5.) One remaining question I have is why the aluminum foil sank when we changed its shape from being flat to a ball. Originally, I thought that an object's ability to float relied heavily on its density, but the foil should theoretically have the same density regardless of its shape. What role does shape play in an object's ability to float?