Ed Tech 4 Science

I was presenting a lesson on engaging starts for my preservice elementary science methods class, and I did the lycopodium flash to model an engagement on surface-area to volume ratio. Lyndon Brooks emailed me this video of the demonstration that he shot with his cell phone. This is my first reception of a video of a class I am teaching. Rillero Lycopodium Flashmov.mp4

This week I was at Santa Clara Unified School District visiting Kathie Kanavel,  Coordinator for Educational Technology. Kathie told me about her math teachers using their Lumens document cameras to record their lessons, with audio, and then they post them to YouTube. What a great way for students to review the lessons. Parents who are trying to help can also experience the lesson.

Adaptive Curriculum has a different way of engaging students in a lesson on surface-area to volume ratio. They use the discrepant event of cheese cubes in a microwave. Most of us, because of conventional oven experiences, would think that the smaller cubes would melt first. But with a microwave oven, the cheese heats from the inside and the larger cube, because it has a smaller surface-area to volume ratio, retains heat better and it melts first.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 1st, 2010 at 4:53 am and is filed under All Grade Levels, biology, Classroom Best Practices, computer assisted instruction, Instructional Leadership, science education, science instruction, teacher education.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.