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 »
Anyone out there heading to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) 2010 National Conference in Philadelphia? General Motors will be there! Come check us out at booth 2155 from March 18-20. We’ll be on site with all sorts of goodies that teachers can take back to their classrooms. And we’re also bringing along the Chevy Volt chassis! Read the rest of this entry »
The technology to run a car on electricity already exists. In fact, the electric car has been around for more than 100 years. To see this technology first for myself I went down to Mr. Thomas Alva Edison's house in West Orange, NJ. Both of these cars were made by Detroit Electric.
Hi, I am Ron Grosinger, an alternative fuel educator at a high school in New Jersey.
Last spring, during a pilot after school club, we converted a gasoline-powered car into an electric vehicle. With the success of the club, we have expanded it to create two Alternative Fuel classes during the day. In one of these courses, I have partnered with another science teacher to create a class named The Science of Alternative Fuels where students learn the chemistry of how different fuels work. In this blog, I will post lessons and success stories from my classes. Read the rest of this entry »
Early on a Saturday morning, nearly 200 students and teachers from eight schools gathered at Jackson Middle School in Grand Prairie, TX to attend the Trinity River Watershed Conference. The purpose of the event was to give both student and teachers a background on the local watershed preparing them to selecting an issue to work on for their Earth Force GM GREEN service-learning project in the Spring. With temperatures plunging to the mid-thirties in Texas, the attendees proved their passion and interest in braving the unseasonably cold weather.
Chemistry, chemistry, chemistry everywhere. We dove into chemistry a couple weeks ago. So far we have done three labs. To teach states of matter, I used a lab I found online at the INQUIRY IN MOTION Web site. It is a free Web site through Clemson University (you have to register, but the lesson plans are free).
The lab I used had my students use their own senses to come up with definitions for three of the states of matter. It worked out well and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Next we moved on to state changes. We used milk jugs and hot water to show molecular movement. I have been saving milk jugs all year for this lab and some of the students brought jugs in as well. It was a great way to show reuse of the milk jugs after their primary use. I was not as thrilled with this lab, since my students still have a hard time visualizing what was happening to the molecules of water. I ended up supplementing the lab with animations and drawings. Read the rest of this entry »
Grand Prairie, Texas students began their GREEN curriculum this Spring with a Watershed Conference where they learned more about their watershed and began to think about their community activism projects. What a great way to get started! Grand Prairie ISD environmental coordinator, Tracy Hollis, along with support from the City of Grand Prairie, Texas Parks and Wildlife, the Trinity River Authority and Texas A&M, provided middle school and high school students participating in GREEN the opportunity to attend a professional style conference on a variety of water quality topics. General Motors volunteers also had the opportunity to help staff the conference, and build excitement around the GREEN program with a Chevy Hybrid Tahoe and Camaro display. The event drew nearly 200 students from eight schools on a Saturday morning! It was a great event, lots of fun and excitement, and a great learning opportunity…all around water quality education!!! Read the rest of this entry »
What is it like to build a “green” car from scratch? How far can an EcoCAR drive on a tank of gas? Where does an A123Systems battery go in an electric car? What decision did one EcoCAR team poll the entire campus about? These questions and many more will be answered on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 3 p.m. ET on the Inside the Green Garage blog (and on GM’s FastLane blog) during a live Web chat with the North Carolina State University and the University of Wisconsin EcoCAR teams. No registration is required; just come to the site and ask the engineering teams your questions! Please spread the word and we’ll see you on the Inside the Green Garage blog next week. Read the rest of this entry »
“Maglev” is a term used to describe the levitation of an object using the repelling forces of magnets. If you have ever tried to force two magnets together with like poles facing one another, you have felt the repelling force.
Base with magnets evenly spaced
Winter break was nice, but I worked way too much. I had to go into my classroom every 3-4 days to feed all of the critters. We have finches, three 20-gallon tanks full of fish (tequila sunrise, mollies and goldfish), red wigglers, daphnia and planarian. I think that’s it, oh wait we also have isopods and mealworms. I also needed to come in to keep an eye on the hydroponics system to make sure it didn’t leak all over the place. I planted some household plants in the hydroponics system that were propagated. They are doing well, actually really well, and I finally have some lettuce flourishing in the hydroponics system. I was not letting the lettuce grow big enough before I transplanted them into the clay pebbles. I have been able to harvest some cilantro as well. As a class, we will try to transplant lettuce again in about a month. Hopefully we will be able to finish our genetically modified food experiments that we had started back in November. Read the rest of this entry »
