SNAPSHOT: Science 7 Nov 12

I had a fun today with the sixth graders trying to answer two questions: what is a volt? what is a watt? It may sound peculiar to call this "fun," but it is what I love about my job. The class was asked to do some homework to explore and find their own definitions of these terms. What came back were very intense Google/Wikipedia answers. We put them up on the board and we took them apart word by word until we had constructed our own understanding of the terms. I came up with a strangely useful analogy using football and one of our wonderful seventh graders, AH. We learned, we laughed, we wrestled with complex concepts and walked away more knowledgeable, thoughtful and content with a class well spent. 

Thank you, sixth grade for a great class!

SNAPSHOT: Science 30 Oct 12

Excited about Circuits
 The class jumped feet first into exploring electricity. We defined what electricity is and then looked at the two types of electricity: static and current electricity. Developing an understanding of these categories, the students were eager to get into the lab and get their hands on some electrical equipment. Students have had several class to experiment and dig up their understanding of how circuits work. They were challenged to make various circuits: two-battery circuits, parallel and series circuits, and circuits with motors.