Overview - Wow!! Time really is flying this year. We are now, excitedly moving into our next major project: "The Science Fair." Just last Friday, we began the process of allowing the students to select their groups of no more than three students. We asked the students to really thing critically about the types of people that would make a great group. it was very captivating to hear the kids giving us very adult-like responses. They kept stating over and over that the most important part was to not make a group of friends. They believed that friends would not yield an effective outcome. The students talked about the groups having an equal balance of leadership, organization, artistic and mathematical/scientific skills. They explained that you can't have too many leaders in one group, just like you can't have too many shy people as well. This will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
This week in Science, we will begin to shape our science project questions. We will be using the "Science Buddies" format, at www.sciencebuddies.org, for those of you who would like to follow along. This page will assist the students throughout the Science Project. The students will be responsible for completing a form, which you will also fill out. This form is a contractual commitment that your child will complete the science project in the given amount of time. The remainder of the week will be spent on background research and how to use sources to collect their information.
A timeline and checklist will be available for the students and parents to help keep them on track. We will have deadlines in place that will also assist the students through the process. Please, feel free to contact me if you have any further questions about the science fair. We will be holding a parent meeting shortly to inform everyone about the the expectations and to discuss any questions that you may have.
The date and time of the Science Fair is : February 26th, from 1-5. All students are required to attend. We will provide more specific details as we get closer to that date. Please stay tuned as we jump into yet another exciting project.
Monday - 1/12/15 -
Today in science, we met in the LGI room, to introduce the Science Fair and get our dates set in place. We asked that all students bring in a small notebook to record their data and observations over the next six weeks. Mr. Bish provided a wonderful presentation on how to select your topic of study. The topics must be beneficial to a large group of people and must be able to be recorded using data or through observation. We took a look at appropriate questions, and how to shape them into a formal science experiment.
We asked students to please go home and get online to generate ideas. They can go right to sciencebuddies.org and get great project ideas. We encourage the parents to join in with them to help motivate their choices. We will send home further information, and their will be an informational meeting coming up soon.
Tuesday - 1/13/15 -
Today in class, we finalized all of the science groups with the students. The teachers modeled how to use sciencebuddies.org and select topics that are interesting in nature to them. The students were then shown a five minute video on the Science Fair at SUNY OCC in Syracuse. The participants described how exciting the competition is, and the directors ran through the expectations. Mr. Bish then gave a presentation on how to complete a "Topics Presentation" vs the "Scientific Method Presentation." Students were given a chance to ask questions.
Homework - All groups must have at least 3 topics chosen for their science project tomorrow. It will be graded accordingly.
Wednesday - 1/14/15 -
The young scientists gathered in Mr. Bish's classroom to focus on their driving questions. We modeled how to effectively collaborate ideas to come to a resolution. As teachers, we displayed a list of eight topics that interested us. We then discussed the topics with each other and rated how they impacted our lives. The topic we chose was sleep deprivation. Obviously this is a very open ended topic, so we modeled how to fine tune the topic. After going back and forth with our ideas, we were able to design a question that effectively measures an expected outcome. "Does drinking an (8) ounce glass of water, before going to bed, effect the number of times one wakes at night?" The question is easily measurable and allows us time to conduct the experiment over multiple nights.
The students were able to witness two teachers working their way through a topic and crafting a wonderful Science Project question. They were then given 30 minutes to work within their groups to craft a topic into a well thought out question. The students were required to record all ideas in their science journals, and then run their question by us, before finalizing their project. As teachers, we made sure that their questions were suitable for completion. Many groups were unable to come up with an idea. We have very tight deadlines to meet, and these students will soon learn that they must take more responsibility for their own learning.
Homework - A "Science Project Proposal Form" was handed out to all students. They are required to have the form completely filled out and returned to Mr. Barkley by tomorrow, no later than their class. Make sure that the parent/guardian has also filled out the agreement/contract.
Thursday - 1/15/15 -
The students are now fully committed to the science fair. Today in class, Mr. Bish and Mr. Barkley modeled how to create their background research plan. There was a step by step lesson provided on the process. First, you start with your driving question, which was due today, in typed form and placed in your folders. Next, we modeled how to create keywords to drive your research. We used sleep deprivation as our focus. In a matter of 30 seconds we had created 8 keywords that would help us focus our research. Then, we modeled how to use those keywords in the creation of (6) research questions. We showed them how to use our basic question starters: who, what when, why, etc..... to begin each sentence, and then how to plug in the keywords to create phrases which result in content specific research questions.
Homework - The "Background Research Plan" is due tomorrow at the beginning of class. Many students still have not turned in their driving question, nor their project proposal plans. It is extremely important that your child stay on top of their work. Thank you for your continued support.
Friday - 1/16/15 -
Wow!! It is hard to believe that another week has flown by. The kids have been working so hard in Science. Their project ideas are beginning to come to life. They are starting to see that their ideas are shared by others, and that there is even research on most of their topics. Their is a real-world connection that is vital for these projects to be successful.
In class today, Mr. Bish modeled how to take your "Background Research Plan" and use those (6) driving questions to locate articles via the internet. They were instructed on the correct research methods for investigations online. They learned that ".edus" are the most reliable sources as they are research based websites from colleges. They also learned that "Wikipedia" is not as reliable as one once thought. ".Coms" are business related companies that are "for profit", so they were instructed to be cautious of bias. The students were then given free reign to collect their sources. We asked that they collect a minimum of three and a maximum of six.
Homework - The students must turn in their three to six resource articles on Tuesday, the 21st. We will be creating bibliographies with their completed work.
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