Olga's Elementary Science Methods 1/2 Blog

   Elementary Science II Week 13: November 18th- November 22th What did you do in the lab this week/ What was the big question:  We started by talking in our groups about the two articles, Couple Inquiry and Sweater, and about how similar and different they are. Both talk about teachers letting go of the control. I think that is something a lot of us are not used to or have never seen. Even as a college student, I am used to being told what to do and study for. To then move to allowing students to take over the lesson can be hard. But both articles make a great point. The sweater article talked about how students naturally lead a lesson if and only need a little bit of guides. The Coupled Inquiry talked about allowing time for freedom but with guidance.  A fun fact that I learned is that Americans are lagging in academics and despise the free education we give. I find it interesting but also not shocking. In all my travels I have seen how smart students can be withou...

 Elementary Science II Week 12: November 11th- November 15th What did you do in the lab this week/ What was the big question:  We went over the documentary, Before The Flood. I already knew that the United States is the most wasteful country but when they gave the statistics that 1 person in the US wastes as much as 9 people in India. It also shocked me how far companies are willing to go to prove that climate change isn't happening or that their business isn't adding to the problem. They pay for researchers to publish articles that disclaim anything about climate change. But this documentary proves that we need to change now, and it won't affect us in our lifetime but it will for future generations. I want to be taught now to make sure we teach this throughout the year not just as a unit then forget about it. Because science is always limited how can we incorporate this into all the other science topics.  Then we got asked the question "  If you have a cup of ice wi...

                                                                    Elementary Science II Week 11: November 4th - November 8th  What did you do in lab this week? / What was the big question?  We started lab by talked about law of superposition, which is sedimentary rock layers that happen over time. The oldest layer is on the bottom and the younger is on top . Geologists use this to tell the age of the rock. Then we were able to look at sand from different places and determine how it was created.  Sand created by water is polished, smooth, and generally similar in size.  Sand created through glaciers is polished, smooth, but irregular in size. Sand created through wind is opaque, frosted, pitted, and very fine grained....

                                                                                    Elementary Science II Week: October 28th - November 1st  What did you do in lab this week? / What was the big question?  We started lab by taking a formative assessment about rocks, the big question is what is a rock? Then we talked in our groups about assessments. We asked ourselves how do we assess students and what do there results tell us about their learning. This made us reflect a lot on our education and how will we change that for our future students. As we talked in class, we just learn something to get an A on a exam and move on. On paper it looks good but in reality you are not learning, challenging and engaging with the material. Then we...

    Elementary Science II Week: October 21th - October 25st  What did you do in lab this week? / What was the big question?  The two discussion topics for this week's lab is geologic time and earth viewer. We began by looking at a presidential elections are impacted by a 100 years old coastline. We learned that parts of the south were underwater as a point in history, flowing the blue line. Then as a class we got to place events on a number line ranging from humans appeared to moon was created. This allowed use to visual see how far away it took earth to become what it is now. It also helps break the misconception that after the big bang earth just appeared. Now that we have learned many things about our universe we answer the question on how to now placed them in order. If we put  all the formations of the Earth on a time line humans have only been part of the timeline for 2 million years.     Answer questions about the weekly text books readings...

                                                                             Elementary Science II Week: October 14th - October 18st  1. What did you do in lab this week? / What was the big question?  My group's big research question was about the earth's origin. There are so many misconceptions about how the Earth was made, for example, the Earth was formed instantly. Historically people used to believe that the Earth was the center of the world. We learned that current science understands that Earth is 4.65 billion years old thanks to geology and fossil studies we were able to set a date for the Earth.  We also got to hear from other groups about the origin of the Universe, the lifecycles of stars, galaxies, Black holes, and exploration of spa...