The Impact Earth website allows you to calculate the impact of various asteroids if they were to hit the Earth. In this case if the YU₅₅ did hit Earth we could expect the equivalent of 8.49 x 10¹⁸ Joules = 2.03 x 10³ Megatons TNT or a 6.8 size earthquake. If it hit the deep ocean, 45-meter Tsunami waves between 2.3 meters (7.6 feet) and 45.7 meters (150 feet) would be expected.  But you will be happy to know that the average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 1.1 x 10⁵years (and if you need a brush up on your scientific notation, just move the decimal point five space to the right so it is 110,000 years). And just to be precise about the vocabulary, when it is traveling in our solar system it is an asteroid, but when it crashes through our atmosphere and breaks up into pieces that hit the Earth, they become meteorites.

Impact Earth data for 400 m Asteroid

It is interesting to use Impact Earth to see the effects of various size asteroids on the Earth. Indeed, student exploration will allow them to realize some of the parameters that will affect the collision including speed, density of asteroid, and angle of impact. The Impact Earth calculator is a good start but it leaves me a bit flat. No matter what size Asteroid, the impact animation is always the same. The depicted size of the asteroid should resemble the number that was entered. But the data are useful, and students could ask and answer many questions about asteroid impact, producing deeper asteroid understanding and inquiry skills.

Famous Asteroids from Adaptive Curriculum Animation

Instead of just sliding objects on an air table, the Activity Object shows clearly what each block represents in our basketball situation, as shown in the scene below. This helps students establish the real-world connection.

Then the rich scaffolding begins. First students join different orange blocks, the spring, and the red block, and set them in motion by releasing the compressed spring. Students have to examine the data for which physical property (mass or volume) is important in determining the block’s speed. The analysis of data indicates that the mass is important.
After the exploration, an explanation describes momentum, and explains the equation and units for momentum. In the elaboration phase, students now tackle the driving question of the basketball players. The students now join the orange and red blocks with a spring but also place the blue block on the table. When the blocks are launched, the orange block moves to the left, the red block to the right where it collides and joins with the blue block. Just as in the starting investigation, students see the actual motion of the blocks, so the data they explore is more meaningful. Then the momentum of each block (orange, red, and red joined with blue) is calculated, and all of these momenta are the same. This helps students to progress in their understanding of conservation of momentum.

This understanding is further developed with an animation describing conservation of momentum. Then students are introduced to other applications of Newton’s Third Law and momentum, including rocket launches, automobile-truck collisions, and Newton’s cradle. After the Activity Object, a ten-question multiple-choice evaluation helps teachers know which concepts students have mastered and where they may need additional work. There is a well-designed Enrichment Sheet for homework where students read a few paragraphs and then answer questions about momentum and solve problems.
As wise of a man as Vic Mayer was, I’m still not sure that all hands-on activities are simulations but I do know that some simulations are better, more economical, and easier than other simulations. “Conservation of Momentum in One Direction” shows the power of a virtual simulation in scaffolding and developing deep understanding of concepts, using the 5E learning model, and helping students realize how classroom science concepts apply to their lives.

Teacher: “Class, today we’re going to learn another important feature of the Moon called an eclipse.”

Female Student: “I love Eclipse! Edward is so hot!”

Male Student: “Oh sir, I hate that show. I wish I had a stake for that…”

Teacher: “No, no, wait! Not the movie ‘Eclipse.’ I’m talking about the scientific phenomenon in which either the Sun or the Moon seem to temporarily disappear.”

(Cue disappointed groan from entire female class population…)

Going into this lesson, I knew I couldn’t compete with a vampire that shimmers and a werewolf with abs that make washboards jealous, so getting my students to focus on the interactions of the Sun, Earth and Moon during solar and lunar eclipses was going to be a challenge. It’s not that eclipses are boring – quite the opposite – but they are definitely a concept that seems very abstract unless they are seen in person. Since I don’t have time to wait for June and July to view a lunar and solar eclipse respectively, I knew I had to find some way to model this for my students. Of course, the day I wanted to do this demo I couldn’t find my globe and my flashlight was dead. No worries, a teacher anticipates these little problems. I turned to my reliable friend Adaptive Curriculum and was thrilled to find a module on lunar and solar eclipses.

While I have a computer lab in my classroom, I opted to do this activity as a class, hoping to generate some discussion and clear up any misconceptions before they became firmly rooted.

My class is very familiar with Adaptive Curriculum. We do a module about once a week. When I told them we were going to use Adaptive Curriculum, they gave the obligatory “I’m a middle-school student and I’m going to complain about this even though I really don’t mind doing it” groan – you know the one I’m talking about – but any apprehension quickly melted away when they saw what the eclipse module had to offer. My students were instantly transfixed by the animated explanation of various cultures’ beliefs in the meaning of eclipses and were even more interested in the lab-like setting presented in the module.

Learners manipulate models of the Earth-Moon-Sun system to observe eclipses.

Using the SmartBoard, we first modeled the solar eclipse. By manipulating the variable of the distance of the moon between the Earth and Sun, my students clearly saw the result on Earth. By changing camera views, they saw how the eclipse appeared on Earth. The ensuing questions provided by the module were perfectly aligned with what I would have asked myself. We repeated the process for the lunar eclipse with similar success.

Not entirely sure how well my students grasped the concept, I headed into the quiz. After the quick, five-question quiz, I was amazed at how well my students had mastered solar and lunar eclipses. I remember how monumental a challenge teaching this concept had been last year and I never felt my students understood eclipses at a level I expected of them. No problem this year. While I attribute much of that to an especially bright group of students, I know the way Adaptive Curriculum presented eclipses was in a way that was easy to understand and remember. As I asked follow-up questions, my students answered them by referring to the demo in the module.

As a teacher, Adaptive Curriculum is an invaluable asset. Not only does it keep my students engaged and on task, it also hits the objectives I want covered. I especially appreciate how Adaptive Curriculum makes a focus to incorporate process skills that students constantly need to practice.

Another benefit of Adaptive Curriculum is in its modeling of labs. Labs can be expensive, time-consuming to prepare and clean up, and aggravating when students don’t follow procedures. While there is nothing that can replace the experience of an actual lab, Adaptive Curriculum provides many safe and secure lab experiences in which students can manipulate variables and quickly and accurately measure results. Now what’s more scientific than that? Even a vampire would agree.

About the Author:

Mr. Hawkins and his students dissecting a frog.

Seth Hawkins is a 7th and 8th grade science teacher at Besteiro Middle School of Brownsville Independent School District in deep subtropical South Texas. A member of Teach for America, Mr. Hawkins came to Texas to help students realize and achieve their full potential. A self-proclaimed tech guru, Mr. Hawkins enjoys everything technology and also teaches Technology Applications and Web Design courses. When he manages to squeeze away from the classroom, Mr. Hawkins enjoys spending time with his beautiful wife and brilliant daughter. Questions or comments can be sent to him at srhawkins@bisd.us

Lib Guides for the course have been developed and vetted by Dr. Hartwell, as sources for helping teachers teach sustainability better.

Ice Candle and Specific Heat, December 30, 2010

Science Prezi-tations: A Break from PowerPoints, December 22, 2010

Sounds for Science Educators, November 27, 2010

Great Science Teaching: An Iterative Process, October 25, 2010

Report To The President Prepare And Inspire: K-12 Education In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Math (Stem) For America’s Future, October 21, 2010

Engaging Starts and Video of Class, October 1, 2010

Titles for 2010 www.ed-tech-4-science.com placed into Wordle

The Context of Learning and Learning with Style, September 15, 2010

Animals in the Science Classroom, August 29, 2010

What is Science? July 31, 2010

Readers and Science Education, July 12, 2010

Electric Cars, Tesla, and Sustainability, June 28, 2010

Sports Drinks, Young Athletes, and Summer Heat, May 29, 2010

Guided Inquiry and Surface Area to Volume Ratio, May 26, 2010

Happy Earth Day, April 22, 2010

Scale of the Universe, April 10, 2010

NSTA Presentation, March 19, 2010

SMALLab Physics, March 3, 2010

My Mendel Moment and a Review of Sprout & Grow Window, February 8, 2010

Testosterone and Who We Are, January 20, 2010

Science and the Haitian Earthquake, January 18, 2010

Science Shows by Undergraduate Students, January 13, 2010

“After Armageddon” on the History Channel, January 5, 2010

One thing that science teachers appreciate more than your everyday person is the extremely high specific heat capacity of water. The high specific heat capacity of water has great demonstrations (for example “Flaming Hands”) and all sorts of implications such as more moderate climates when living near a large body of water and why water is so good at putting out fires. Adaptive Curriculum just released a new Activity Object entitled “Specific Heat.” Through a series of virtual experiments, students are led to an understanding of the amount of heat transferred or absorbed (Q) = mass (m) x change in temperature (∆T) x specific heat (c).

This Activity Object from Adaptive Curriculum is a fantastic way to help students develop a deep understanding of concepts related to heat transfer that are important in both physics and chemistry.

* * *

Time lapse Mathmos Thaw From Think-Geek.com

“Thermodynamics is a funny subject. The first time you go through it, you don’t understand it at all. The second time you go through it, you think you understand it, except for one or two small points. The third time you go through it, you know you don’t understand it, but by that time you are so used to it, it doesn’t bother you anymore.” Arnold Sommerfeld (1868-1951) From:  http://www.eoht.info/page/Arnold+Sommerfeld

Most kids aren’t going to rejoice in this news. They are holding out for the research that says that it helps them to do homework if they are also watching TV. I guess if there are parents who make their children go to some solitary confinement place to do homework, the children might be happy to see this news. My sons seem to enjoy doing their work in the kitchen/family room area, where we tend to congregate, and my wife or I are available to help. They do have a built in desk/office space that has no windows and is cluttered. I was thinking about clearing some clutter so they would actually use their desk area, but now I can point to this 1978 study as evidence that their desk area is perfect. To be honest, I don’t really mind where they do homework and study, just as long as they do it.

Extending this idea, the varied environments created through virtual learning are better than “different rooms.” Students can learn while on Mars or learn while at the bottom of the ocean. Just consider some of the over four hundred Activity Objects of Adaptive Curriculum, students find themselves as mechanics in a car garage, on planets from different solar systems, in Egypt studying mutualism, in a chemistry lab, in a music salon, controlling a reactor in a nuclear submarine, at an amusement park constructing a roller coaster, living in Europe 500 years ago, and producing a theatrical production. Clearly my house doesn’t have rooms that are this interesting, my advertisement might be, “you can wash dishes in the kitchen.” Actually, we do make an effort to have an interesting home environment with interesting décor from different places around the world where we lived, a pool, a trampoline, a basketball court, a lawn, two fish tanks, a reptile tank, two sulcatta baby tortoises, one shelty, and an exercise area. My home, just like most other homes, is more interesting than the typical classroom. The beauty of virtual science activities is that we can take students out of the classroom. I don’t mind an occasional replication of a classroom lab, but the true power of virtual learning is taking students outside the walls of the classroom.

I hinted at controversy in my opening sentence. The Times article also called the whole notion of learning styles a myth; A dangerous statement with so many teachers eating up the invented multiple intelligences of Howard Gardner. I predict in 2020, Gardner will state that there is an intelligence for creating new multiple intelligences. While it is clear that some people are better at some things than other people are, at what point do skills, abilities, and knowledge become grouped as intelligence? I think I should rush to invent “soccer intelligence,” “volleyball setting intelligence,” and “interior design intelligence.”

The great regard for Gardner’s work by teachers is no doubt because teachers see different learning styles. Any teacher who has taught for several years will know that students have varied learning styles. Come on, how obvious, some students learn quite well by reading a textbook and others simply don’t. If you have ever been in school and there was a subject that didn’t come naturally to you but did come naturally to others, you would also realize this. So, I’m not sure how you can state that, “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing.”

Color Mixing at a Theater: Paints and Lights

To be sure, a teacher with only a dry-erase marker and a class of 35 adolescent students might have a difficult time adjusting to the learning styles of students, so we might expect little “utility” as he lectures. But if given the training, resources, and a suitable class size, teachers can know their students better, and plan a variety of experiences to help students learn science. One powerful tool for helping students learn at their own pace, and in ways they enjoy, is internet-based science experiences.

Which helps to explain many types of adaptations in biology and why individual cells can’t be the size of houses; they would simply not have enough surface area to absorb the materials they need, like oxygen, or to expel waste. From villi in the intestines to convolutions in the brain, our bodies have many adaptations to increase surface area.

Adaptive Curriculum has a guided inquiry Activity Object called “Surface Area to Volume Ratio in Organisms.” A clever engagement draws the students into the interactive experience. You have a plate of cheese with different size cubes that you are going to put into the microwave. But first, learners predict whether the large cubes or the small cubes will melt first.

Obviously, the small cheese cubes will melt before the larger ones. If you thought this, you have experienced a discrepant event. In actuality, the large cubes melt first. Since the microwave heats from the inside, the smaller cubes lose their heat faster than the large ones. The larger cubes, thus retain more heat and melt faster.  Discrepant events are powerful, because learners want to know why they were wrong.

From this, learners virtually change the size of cubes and see the changes in surface area, volume, and surface area to volume ratio. Then body sizes and shapes of animals are explored, as students learn about the implications of size and shape for heat loss.

My Peace Corps teaching and Adaptive Curriculum are different modes of guided inquiry and discovery learning, but both can help produce deep and life long learning.

This is how Carl Sagan (1997) described it in his book THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark:

Perhaps the grandest museum exhibit can’t be seen. It has no home: George Awad is one of the leading architectural model makers in America, specializing in skyscrapers. He is also a dedicated student of astronomy who has made a spectacular model of the Universe. Starting with a prosaic scene on Earth, and following a scheme proposed by the designers Charles and Ray Eames, he goes progressively by factors of ten to show us the whole Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way and the Universe. Every astronomical body is meticulously detailed. You can lose yourself in them. It’s one of the best tools I know of to explain the scale and nature of the Universe to children. Isaac Asimov described it as ‘the most imaginative representation of the universe that I have ever seen, or could have conceived of. I could have wandered through it for hours, seeing something new at every turn that I hadn’t observed before.’ Versions of it ought to be available throughout the country – for stirring the imagination, for inspiration and for teaching. But instead, Mr Awad cannot give this exhibit to any major science museum in the country. No one is willing to devote to it the floor space needed. As I write, it still sits forlornly, crated in storage.

In my office, I have the model of the Big Dipper that George Awad gave me during that 1985 visit. After seeing so many 2-dimensional drawings of the big dipper, the model is a 3-dimensional view that shows how relative size and distance influence what we see in the night sky.

Then there was the famous  Powers of Ten Video (or applet) that gave us the broad view of the universe and kept on magnifying by ten, until we arrived in Florida, and then descended into a plant.

Now the folks at Primax Studio have done their own Scale of the Universe with drawn images, instead of partially using photographs, but the music and the interactive aspects make it delightful to explore.  

The scale of the universe is difficult to fully appreciate but we are getting closer due to multimedia tools. A 3-d Imax movie will soon be in theaters.

It is natural to wonder why or how. When students are ready, teachers may want to discuss  earthquakes and their causes.

The folks at IRIS have a website with a PowerPoint presentation and Quicktime movie that explain a lot of details associated with this particular earthquake and earthquakes in general. The PowerPoint has excellent pictures of the destruction to buildings, without presenting images of human suffering that would be difficult for some students. The image to the right is taken from the PowerPoint.

IRIS (AKA the Incorporated Research Institutes for Seismology) has lots of resources for learning about earthquakes including SeisMac 2.0 which allows Macintosh computers to become seismographs.

In the quest for Science Literacy, we strive to give students an understanding of natural events before they happen. Adaptive Curriculum has two strong Activity Objects, one is on determining the magnitude of an earthquake and the other is determining the location of the earthquake. The image below is from “Earthquakes: Measuring Magnitude.“