Communicating with the World

Communicating with the World!

We are heading into a very exciting time of year where students begin to post Podcasts and Voicethreads up to the internet.  Did you know last year we published over 400 Podcasts and Voicethreads?  Nearly every grade level posts research information, short stories, and songs about Science, Social Studies, and many other curricular areas.  It is a great place for your students to see the learning that is happening here at Cedar Park.

Check out our Fourth Grade students recently posted their Voicethreads on Water.  They talk about the water cycle, ways to conserve water, and how much water they personally used in a week.  The great thing about Voicethread is the ability to make comments on their work.  So other students can login and comment on their peers great ideas!  Just have your students click on the Green Microphone on our homepage to take a look...

Our First Grade students are finishing up their Insect Flip Book Podcasts.  They studied insect in the first trimester and then wrote a short story about a insect.  We are recording their stories and you will be able to see them on the podcast page in December.  Have your students click on the Purple i Icon on our homepage to check out all of our upcoming Podcasts!

Inquiry and the Happy Scientist

Having a sense of inquiry is a foundational skill for 21st century students.  Being able to wonder about something and investigate the answer fosters creativity.  We know that having a daily inquiry question promotes critical thinking and questioning skills for learners. 

Robert Krampf is the Happy Scientist who produces a well written daily blog.  One of the components of his blog is a daily science picture with a question.  Robert does his own photography and captures images of science in his backyard.  The topics vary and include all of the sciences.  With each photograph there is an inquiry question.  He asks his readers WHY?  Questions to promote deep thinking, investigation and create curious minds.  Robert posts the answers the next day on his website to learn from.  You can access the science photo of the day by clicking on this link:  Happy Scientist

How might you use a science photo and daily question such as this in your classroom?

Written by Michelle Ament

Teaching Habits of Mind: Part 1

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Teaching Habits of Mind: It’s not whether you HAVE it or not, it’s how you USE and IMPROVE it.

 

            “Smart is not something you are, it’s something you get.” I remember the first time I saw this saying on a poster in a classroom. I thought to myself, “that’s a good one, I need to use that in my own room.” As teachers, we like to post inspiring quotes throughout our rooms in the hopes that students will read them and take them to heart. I hate to admit it, but even though I loved this quote, I never really thought of it as more than just that: something to inspire. I never consciously considered taking the attitude that this quote hopes to inspire and incorporate it into my teaching. This can be far more than a quote. It should be how we teach the Habits of Mind to our students.

            Teaching the habits as fixed characteristics that somebody already possesses does a disservice to students because they begin to see the habits as unchanging, and potentially unattainable. If a student has trouble thinking independently and we imply that smart people inherently think that way, the student may feel like they can never succeed because they don’t “have” it now. But if we teach the habit as something that smart people work on and develop, we teach that even if you're not good at the habit now, you can get better. This idea of striving to improve our habits of mind is crucial to all students feeling they can succeed.

            Being able to use the habits of mind is not enough. We should strive to improve upon our habits. If we find that we are performing poorly at one habit, we should ask ourselves how we could do better. As educators, we can do this for our students. The habits can be thought of as a muscle; we all have them to begin with but they may be weak. As we work on toning them, they become stronger. If we let them go unused, they may degrade back to weakness. When we see our students using their habits, we should ask ourselves how well they are using them. If students are struggling with a habit, encourage them to find ways to improve upon it. Help them understand that everyone is capable of the habits, but we all need to work on how well we use them.

Source: Mindful By Design

Written by Matt Armstrong

Inspiring Curiosity in the World Around Us

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 E4 Conference: Inspiring Curiosity in the World Around Us"

Stuff to Blow Your Mind Blog

The keynote address at the E4 Conference was titled “Inspiring Curiosity in the World Around Us” given by Julie Douglas and Robert Lamb; they both write for the blog “Stuff to Blow Your Mind” at Howstuffworks.com.  The main takeaway from this address was that we are all scientists, mathematicians and engineers. The world is an amazing place with a multitude of stimuli and we should strive to take in as much of it as we can. As teachers, we should encourage this in our students.

We are all scientists. Children, even as babies, are much more conscious of the world around them than adults. This is because adults have experiences and preconceived notions that shape how we see the world. Children do not yet have such schema to guide their understanding of stimuli. Adults are much more attached to their prior beliefs than children. Children see their world in a very raw, statistical way, called Bayesian Thinking.

Children are innate physicists, accountants and storytellers. They have an innate number sense that is tied back to the physical body; notice that most man-made number systems are based on fives, tens and twenties. Coincidence? Even though babies do not understand number systems, they do understand quantities (more or less), making them born accountants. Science tells a story and children are very good at telling stories, making them natural scientists.

They also focused on the importance of play. There are five main components to play: play celebrates uncertainty; it is acceptable to change; it is open to possibility; it is cooperative; it is intrinsically motivated. All of these different components can be applied to scientific observation. Thus it is important when teaching science to bring play in when possible.

They also focused on critical thinking. Children are very imaginative but they also equally capable of critical thinking. Given several possibilities to solve a problem or question, the simplest one is the most likely solution, and children understand this. Called “Occam’s Razor,” this allows us to look at an event and possible solutions. We examine all the steps it would take to logically reach each solution. The solution with the fewest number of steps is the most likely. This can be a game to play with children to use critical thinking skills.

I found this talk of everyone being scientists and being influenced in the way we see the world based on prior beliefs to be fascinating. It can be hard as adults to step back, away from our own schemas, and see the world as children see it; unfiltered. They are so in tune to details that we might so easily overlook. If we can bring this fact into our own consciousness, we can maybe better understand what our students are seeing and trying to process. I encourage you to check out the “Stuff to Blow Your Mind” blog. It has many great articles about viewing the world as children do and could be valuable resource to our teaching.

Written by Matt Armstrong

It's Not Magic, It's Science!

 Jerry Wenzel is the wacky professor of this fun, fast paced workshop.  He presents many "magic tricks" that use the basic foundations of science and engineering.  The class stretches your thinking as you try to solve, "How did he do that?"

Matt Armstrong would make a wonderful wacky professor!  I hope that he decides to use some of these magic tricks with the students during Exploration Classes!

Note:  Some of these activities use candles and lit paper.  Hopefully he won't do these under one of the sprinkler heads!

Frogs, Volts, and Vinegar: Engineering Electricity from Past to Present

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By Sheryl Struble 

 One of the sessions I attended at the E4 Conference was Frogs, Volts, and Vinegar: Engineering Electricity from Past to Present.  The presenters were from the Bakken Museum.  During this session we learned how a battery works.  We experimented by soaking a paper towel in a vinegar and water solution.  We then used small squares of sheet metal and small squares of copper to create a “sandwich.”  We continued to build using the layering of copper, paper towel, and sheet metal until we had enough placed together to light a light bulb and make a buzzer sound.  Each time we built the sandwich we placed one end of the light bulb wire to the topside and then one to the bottom side.  This experiment replicated the inside of a battery and how a battery works. 

 The second experiment was to build a “magic wand.” We were given a light bulb, 2 wires, 2 batteries, and two paper fasteners.  We needed to build a circuit.  Once the circuit was built and we lit the light bulb we knew we were successful.  The circuit was taped onto a sheet of white paper and then rolled up and taped to look like a wand.  Touching a ring that was on your finger to the copper fasteners is what made the “magic wand” light.  

Both of these Engineering designs will be helpful during our Energy and Electromagnetism Unit in 4^th grade.  More information about the Bakken Museum can be found by clicking on the link below.

www.thebakken.org

Science Outside the Box

By Cindy Altendahl & Lauren Knutson

We attended the session titled "Kids Gotta Build" facilitated by Dr. Jane Snell Copes. It focused on the importance of kids physically building things in school. Some of the essential questions addressed in the session were: What do we learn from building? Why is it so urgent that kids physically build things at school? and How can we modify classrooms to allow this important work? Below are some of the examples that could be made out of simple materials in our classrooms. We thought that some of these were great science extensions or wonderful ideas for exploration or after school projects. 

Dr. Cope is available for school visits and also has resources at her website: www.scienceoutsidethebox.com 

Cranky Box

Toppers

Marble Maze

Using Engineering Notebooks

Remember Reverse Engineering 
by Cathy K.

Reverse Engineering (RE): "disassemble or analyze in detail in order to discover concepts involved in manufacture." 
- The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, New ed. 2004.

One of the sessions I attended at the E4 Conference was on using writing to document and communicate engineering ideas.  We worked through ideas on how using engineering/science notebooks connect to the ELA standards.

The main activity we did in the session was titled: Pen & Teller, Inc.  We started by writing and sketching in our notebooks our pen observations and what we noticed when we disassembled the pens.  Then we documented how the pen actually worked, using what we knew about springs, locking mechanisms, etc...  At the end, we were given a design challenge.  I enjoyed the learning experience and feel it would be a great reverse engineering project for students at CP.

Here is a glimpse of how the reverse engineering challenge starts:

Click on the link for more details about the activity: https://www.ieee.org/documents/Pen_and_Teller.pdf

To engage the audience in the topic of pens, the presenter used these video clips on Inkjoy pens...

Biomimicry at the E4 Conference

The E4 conference was a great learning experience!  By Michelle

The session I found the most informative was titled Engineering and Nature.  It was lead by a resident expert from the Bell Museum.  The idea behind this session was using animal's adaptations as a spring board for engineering design challenges.  There were three design challenges I participated in and I want to tell you about my favorite, the Bird's Nest.

1.  Bird's Nest Problem: how to construct a nest which can stand 18 inches from the ground, resist wind and protect the bird's eggs from predators.  The challenge was to have the nest withstand windspeed from a fan on level 3.

Using the engineering design process we worked together to create the nest you see below.  It was great to see all of our unique ideas come together.  The real learning and creativity came into effect when we had to modify and adjust our design.

Each group had the opportunity to discuss their strategy and what worked and what didn't work.  Next we were asked to think of birds we knew who had similar nests.  We made the connection between our nest and those found in nature by viewing some images of birds nests as well as looking at some preserved nests.

The design challenge was an investigation into nests and adaptations birds make.  Since Biomimicry is a relatively new idea it was fascinating to explore how these ideas could be used in the classroom.  As I am just beginning to learn about this science I found the following 2 minute video to be very informative.

After exploring the Biomimicry 3.8 website I came upon the following lessons (just click on them) to get started with students.  The final video talks about why Biomimicry is important in education, again very eye opening especially for a STEM school.   Science and Engineering blend so naturally in this discipline.

Learning abut Biomimicry Through Poetry Lessons

Velcro Race Game