During the second and third week of camp, we began to introduce tools and machines. We wanted to give students a simple modeling project that would ease them into their use of the equipment and our safety rules and procedures.
Our design challenge was to brainstorm an innovative edible candy or sweet treat that could be marketed and sold in stores. The final prototype would be an over-sized model of the product, built out of foam, painted with acrylic paints and hung from the ceiling of the room by fishing line! Luckily, I ran into a very accomplished entrepreneurer over the summer, named Bridget Graham, who happened to have her own business along these same lines. Read the rest of this entry »
The last couple weeks of school were a blur. We finished up the POGIL activities and the labs and all of the sudden it was the last week of school.
As you know, the last week of school is all about promotion in the 8th grade and preparing the kids for their departure. We had yearend field trips, graduation practice, parties and movies. I had my homeroom kiddos all day and all week. So, no science was done. I like where I ended the year with my science classes. They were looking ahead to what high school science would be like and still able to be a middle schooler while they got a taste of high school. As for me, I am off to a summer filled with college classes (I am working towards my PhD) and establishing my curriculum for next year. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this month, Chris Better and I took a team of five students to participate in the NJ Envirothon for the first time. In fact, we were the first team comprised of “Technology Education/Engineering” students, as the other teams were all assembled by their schools’ science teachers. There were 47 teams participating in total this year. People were quite receptive to our participation because the whole theme of the event was based around solving environmental problems, particularly those dealing with water conservation. Read the rest of this entry »
I love chemistry! We have been looking at the atomic theory in greater detail to prepare my students for high school. They will be learning about it again in 9th and then again in 11th grade. My students have completed two inquiry labs where they used a flow chart that they created from experimenting with chemical reactions and indicators to identify an unknown substance and then to identify a unknown solution’s pH. I found the labs in a book called “Inquiry-Based Experiments in Chemistry”. The labs went really well. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Fryzel, supervisor of plant and industrial engineering at the Flint Metal Center, talks with Dillon students about what waste can be recycled, re-used or reduced.
For the last eight years, UAW and GM representatives from the Flint Metal Center have visited Dillon Elementary School to talk about how students there can do their part to protect the environment.
A couple weeks ago, the Flint Metal Center team, which included some personnel from Flint Engine South and Flint Assembly, walked three third-grade classes through the process of how we separate oil from water before sending the water on to the city of Flint for further treatment. Read the rest of this entry »
For the past couple of months we’ve been working hard on a project that uses the exciting technology and images of Google Earth to show how energy is used and produced all over the world. We call it the GM Google Earth Project.
Wow were do I start? You have heard of the journey of life…well, I am on the journey of alternative fuel discovery. And so are my students. My latest big event brought me to NSTA (the National Science Teachers Association convention in Philadelphia). As an auto shop teacher I felt a little bit like a fish out of water. Nevertheless this fish is growing wings, just like in the Discovery Education movie “Life,” which I got to see on an Imax screen at one of the fun conference night events. As a green auto shop teacher collaborating with the science department, it was a great experience for me to be at this mecca of science conventions with more than 10,000 attendees. Read the rest of this entry »
And here we are, back in Michigan. 500 hours of planning, 30 hours of manning a booth, 3,500 recycled newspaper pencils and 350 bamboo USB drives later, NSTA’s 2010 national conference is officially over.
As one who works behind the screen most of the time, it was a really really awesome experience for me to get to meet the teachers on the other side of the screen and be able to give away resources that they could take back to their classrooms. Read the rest of this entry »
Every year I have trouble with this activity. I have tried three different versions of the same activity to allow students to use the same process Mendeleev used to organize the periodic table. It involves organizing 27 elements by using two of their properties. The most recent version gave them the option of four different properties to choose from….This year’s version was more successful than past years because it was more structured, but nearly half of the students struggled severely with the complex nature of this classifying activity. During a couple of classes, I broke out the document camera and started organizing the elements myself as an example using the projector. It helped move along the groups that were still struggling. There were groups that simply copied me, but they understood the concept more than when they were struggling. The biggest success from this activity was the fact that most of the groups (although frustrated) did not shut down. They continued to try. I am feeling that some of the kids are not developed enough in their abstract thought to classify using two properties. The trick will be how to differentiate this activity next year. As soon as I figure out the best way to do this activity, I will laminate the cards and use them every year. Read the rest of this entry »
In section two of our chemistry unit, we are studying chemical reactions. We started the unit with notes (yuck! I hate notes). Unfortunately it was a necessary evil. I needed to give basic information that is difficult to learn in a lab, like chemical equation anatomy and so forth. Read the rest of this entry »
