Science in a bag for grade 5

I am heading toward teaching I/S sciences and my daughter and her friend asked me to help them develop a science lab project for their grade 5 class. We came up with a fun project that is easy, safe and dramatic. The materials are:

• citric acid (can be obtained for canning or from the drug store)
• baking soda
• water
•  a candle
•  a large and small zip lock bag

Put a Tbsp of citric acid and a Tbsp of baking soda into the small bag. Mix the powders well. Place the small bag into the large bag. Put approximately 15 ml of water into the small bag with the powders and quickly seal both the inside and outside bags. The mixture will froth as carbon dioxide is being produced. The small bag should expand enough to cause an audible POP! If possible to light a small candle the bags can then be opened the gas "poured" onto the candle which will put it out. This is so easy and very dramatic. The students should be able to explain that this is a chemical reaction as a gas is produced. They can see the bubbling of the gas and they can see the effect of the gas when it puts out the candle.

Classrom Live with Beth Still

This was a very informative session discussing a variety of online class organisation systems including Moodle. Beth Still is incredibly knowledgeable about teaching using Web 2.0. Here is a quote from her Edublog "I am a self-proclaimed edtech evangelist! I love finding Web 2.0 tools for my students to use that will help them express their creativity. I believe that by giving students options it empowers them and drives them to succeed."
In the session today Beth explained that she uses tools such as Moodle to allow her students to learn using different platforms and to proceed at their own pace. Her blog link is http://bethstill.edublogs.org/beths-bio/
Moodle stands for modular object oriented dynamic learning environment. It is based on social constructivism allowing variation in instructional materials to meet the needs of all types of learners.
The intro page to Moodle reads:
"Welcome to the Moodle community!
Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.
Moodle.org is our community site where Moodle is made and discussed. Please use the menus to explore and join in!"
The link is: http://moodle.org/

Other interesting tools discribed by Beth included:

1. Diigo  http://www.diigo.com/
   "Diigo allows you to take personal notes and highlight text information on web pages just as you would on a piece of paper. You can then bookmark and save this information for further review, while adding tags to keep everything organized. In bookmarking this information, you can also choose to share with colleagues and friends to allow them to access the web page, view your notes and highlights, and add their own annotations. "
2. Linoit  http://en.linoit.com/ 
   lino
3. Live binder     http://livebinders.com/  "LiveBinders is your 3-ring binder for the Web. Collect your resources, organize them neatly and easily, make an Impression."
4. Twitter widget  http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets "Widgets let you display Twitter updates on your website or social network page
   
   Widgets are compatible with any website and most social networks. Simply choose the one that matches where you would like to include it."

 I do not understand the use of all of these resources yet but I am determined to investigate them and try to encorporate some at least in my future teaching.

Frog Dissection

Virtual frog dissection class for grade 10. The presentation I gave at the beginning definitely helped to get them interested. I showed them some frog diversity slides including The Goliath Frog (size of a small dog) and the smallest frog (smaller than the end of your finger). The students were also engaged in discussion about cutaneous respiration when I showed them an image of The Borneo Flat Headed Frog which has no lungs and breathes 100% cutaneously. I showed the class an image of a frozen frog and we discussed the natural antifreeze that keeps their tissues from being damaged during winter hibernation (not all species freeze). The students were fascinated by this. During virtual dissection discuss how the eyes can be retracted into the mouth to aide swallowing as this may not be discussed in the software you are using. Important to emphasize that because frogs skin is thin and permeable they are very susceptible to toxins such as pesticides and act as environmental sentinels. Many species are endangered because of this. 

Density and Diabetes

On my first teaching block I did a density demo for my Grade 9 academic chemistry unit. This demo is available on the web and is very useful for helping students understand what density is. This demo  is also great for helping them to realize how bad pop is for them. Being an immunologist with a background in diabetes, I feel compelled to spread the word about the evil of sugary drinks whenever I can. These beverages and other artificial sources of fructose are directly linked to the incredible rise in diabetes.

Back to the demo. You have a can of coke and a can of diet coke, a scale and an aquarium filled with water. You may or may not have already introduced the concept of density. Ask the students what will happen when you put the 2 cans in the water. When you do, the coke should sink to the bottom and the diet coke should float. NOTE, I had trouble when I did a run through because my coke can kept floating. I determined that if you put the cans in upright you may get air trapped in the bottom rim of the can, so put the cans in upside down or on their sides. Once the cans have established their place in the aquarium ask the students why the coke sank and the diet coke did not. Now you can discuss that they are the same volume but different mass. Weigh the two cans and then show them the difference by weighing out the equivalent amount of sugar. This is a dramatic demonstration to them just how much sugar they consume from one can of pop.

Easy, cheap, short density/diabetes demo.