Our school was recycling some old computers, so my students convinced me that it would be worthwhile o dissect a few of them to see if there was anything worth saving. It was quite remarkable to see just how interested they were in examining the insides of the machines — a few desktop computers and a monitor — but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, it’s getting harder and harder to open up their iPods and other electronics, and even more difficult to repair and repurpose them, so I can see why students would jump at the chance of looking inside a device. Also, they tend to like to break things.
Pulling apart a monitor.
To get them to think a little more about what they were seeing, I got a couple students to draw a scale diagram of one of the motherboards, and write up a report on what they’d done.
Diagramming a motherboard.
Some of the other students spent their time trying to make all the motors, LED’s, and lasers work by hooking them up to 9-Volt batteries. Then they found the fans… and someone had the brilliant idea that they could use it to make a hovercraft. Using a gallon sized ziplock bag and some red duct tape, a prototype was constructed.
Hovercraft prototype.
The fan would inflate the bag which would then let air out the bottom through small holes. I convinced them to try to quantify the effectiveness of their fans before they put the holes in by hooking the bag up to one of our Vernier pressure sensors that plug into their calculators. Unfortunately, the sensor was not quite sensitive enough.
Attempting to measure the hovercraft’s bag pressure using a gas pressure sensor connected to a calculator.
This was not how I had planned spending those days during the interim, but the pull of following the students’ interests was just too strong.
We took a school trip to the ski slopes in Hidden Valley. It was the interim, and it was a day dedicated to taking a break. However, it would have been a great place to talk about gradients, changes in slopes, and first and second differentials. The physics of mass, acceleration, and friction would have been interesting topics as well.
Calculus student about to take the second differential.
This year has been cooler than last year, but they’ve still struggled a bit to keep snow on the slopes. They make the snow on colder nights, and hope it lasts during the warmer spells. The thermodynamics of ice formation would fit in nicely into physics and discussion of weather, while the impact of a warming climate on the economy is a topic we’ve broached in environmental science already.
The blue cannon launches water into the air, where, if it’s cold enough, it crystallizes into artificial snow. The water is pumped up from a lake at the bottom of the ski slopes.
… observed astrophysical black holes may be Einstein–Rosen bridges, each with a new universe inside that formed simultaneously with the black hole. Accordingly, our own Universe may be the interior of a black hole existing inside another universe.
For some reason the Big Bang theory came up during a middle-school class discussion last week; specifically, the mind-bending question of what exactly was there just before and at the beginning of the universe. We also meandered into the question about what’s at the edge of the universe — and how can the universe have an edge where time and space end.
There really aren’t any satisfactory answers to these questions, especially not for middle schoolers. But it allowed me to talk about how science is really just the best explanations for the known observations. Unsatisfactory answers to these questions are why we have the scientific method.
A black hole passing in front of a galaxy acts as a giant lens. Image by Urbane Legend via Wikipedia.
To throw a little more mind-bending fuel on the fire, however, I’m going to show the class the article quoted above.
It’s an interesting example of how scientists see the universe through math. And how they strive to make sense of things they can’t see or touch.
When given the choice, the environments students choose to work in does not look like the typical classroom. Mrs. D., our head of school, shared a link to this article about the Swedish Telefonplan School that’s designed with the students’ preferences in mind.
From inside the Telefonplan School. Image via Zilla Magazine (hat tip Edudemic).The inside of the Erika-Mann Elementary School. Photo by Jan Bitter.
It’s a lot like the Erika-Mann-Grundschule in Berlin, and the type of open-plan rooms that Montessori Middle Schools aim for. I particularly note the design gives lots of space for small group work. Adolescents tend to cluster, but seem to work most productively in smaller groups.
The group of Lamplighter Montessori students work in parallel but help each other out.
And given the choice, students often prefer the floor to the tables.
Fulton School students choose to sit in the window to work on their math.
The footage was taken [on February 14th] in the Urals, where over 200 were injured from the impact. The meteor was likely related to the asteroid 2012 DA14, which is scheduled to graze our planet [on the 15th] at 7.25 pm EST.
We were discussing the rules about how students should act when they work in groups: work to find work to do; allow people to work; be respectful; be focused on the project at hand. As the discussion evolved into what we should do about enforcement, one student suggested that positive reinforcement would be better than negative, so maybe they should get points for good behavior. Being students raised on the Harry Potter series, it was perhaps inevitable that someone would come up with the idea of separating the class into houses that could compete to see who got the most marbles/points.
Support for an inter-house competition was unanimous — after a little more discussion and explanation — and they were able to persuade me to try it. Each group would be its own house — they got to choose the names — and would earn marbles as a group.
I dug up some marbles and a few old jars overnight. I realized, however, that I’d run out of marbles pretty quickly if I gave them out as liberally as I wanted to, so I whipped up a website to keep score long-term.
They chose names. The names all ended up being Harry Potter themed — over some opposition within the groups, however. No one wanted Hufflepuff, and one group flirted with Slytherin, but we finally ended up with Griffindor, Ravenclaw, Chudley Cannons, and S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare). I think they may have, briefly, given each other individual names out of the books, but I was not privy to those deliberations.
How’s it working?
It’s working remarkably well so far. It was originally their idea, and they were forced to persuade me that it was worth trying, so I think they’re well invested in making it work. Our discussions have been much more organized, with fewer people speaking out of turn. And we’ve had much more discussion and questions among them since that’s one way to gain points.
I’ve made it a point to use the physical jars with marbles. They can hear the marbles clink when they fall in, so they get direct, unobtrusive positive feedback.
I’ve also made it a rule that they don’t get points if they ask for them — to reduce the lobbying — but they can still challenge if they did not get points they think they deserved; I always encourage them to think that they’re entitled to a reasonable response from me on any subject (its a good way of keeping me honest, and it helps them see the bigger picture).
The students were also able to change my mind about taking away points. I’d originally wanted to only give positive rewards, but they thought they could handle the negatives just fine, and were kind-of looking forward to them. And I have to admit they seem to work. Now, I’m not the only one trying to keep these adolescents in line. They’re getting pressure for good behavior from their peers; a much more potent source of influence for kids in a stage that features social development.
The inter-house rivalry is also healthy enough at the moment. They’re quite happy to see the other groups loose points, but seem to realize that openly advocating for it would not be a particularly advantageous move.
At the end of the quarter, the students want some sort of reward for the house with the most points. I told them that they should make proposals, because I had no good ideas.
In all, it has started quite promisingly. We’ll see how it goes.
The universal pH indicator turns red for acids and blue for bases.
Ms. Wilson’s chemistry class did a beautiful electrolysis experiment by mixing a universal pH indicator into the salt solution. The indicator changes color based on how acidic or basic the solution is; we’ve used this behavior to show how blowing bubbles in water increases its acidity.
Changing colors of universal indicator show how blowing bubbles acidifies water (light green-second beaker) from neutral pH (dark green-third beaker) standard. For comparison, the first beaker (red) is acidified while the last beaker (blue) is made alkaline.
In this experiment, when electrodes (graphite pencil “leads”) are placed into salt (NaCl) water and connected to a battery, the sodium (Na) and chloride (Cl) split apart.
NaCl –> Na+ + Cl–
The positive sodium ion (Na+) migrates toward the negative electrode, where it gets an electron and precipitates on the electrode as a plating. This is called electroplating and is done to give fake gold and silver jewelry a nice outward appearance.
Similarly, the water (H2O) also dissociates into hydrogen (H+) and hydroxide (OH–) ions.
H2O –> H+ + OH–
Hydrogen bubbles forming at the negative electrode.
The positive hydrogen ions (H+) go toward the negative electrode where they get an electron from the battery and are liberated as hydrogen gas (when they bond to another hydrogen you get H2 gas). However, releasing the positive hydrogen ion, leaves behind hydroxide ions in the area around the positive electrode.
The opposite happens at the positive electrode, with hydrogen ions left behind in the solution.
Since acidity is a measure of the excess of hydrogen ions in solution (H+), the left behind hydrogen ions make the solution near the positive electrode acidic, which turns the indicator solution red. The OH– left near the negative electrode make the solution basic, which shows up as blue with the indicator.
If you gently shake the petri dish you end up with beautiful patterns like this:
Swirls.
And this:
After the electrodes have been disconnected.
Note: if the solution is mixed completely the hydrogen and hydroxide ions react with each other to make water again, the solution neutralizes, and becomes uniform again.
Note 2: This is an experiment that I should also do in physics. It should be interesting for students to see this experiment from two different perspectives to see how the subjects overlap.
I’ve collected a set of aquatic plants for our fish tank for the middle school students to be able to look at their cells under the microscope. A few are from the store, like the Eregia densa I’ve used in the past, but we’ve also grabbed some algae from the creek, and Mr. Woodbury brought in some algae specifically for our two resident tadpoles.
I was checking out at the creek algae under the microscope when I came across these two microbes. They both were motile and seemed to be surrounded by cilia, but I really don’t know what they are.
