Technoscience

I’ve hit the ground running with four new classes in 2010 – 6/7 Maths and Science, Year 8 Science and VCE Biology. We have many new students to the school in our 6/7 program, so it has been a busy first week introducing them to the values and expectations of our school and making sure everyone is feeling comfortable.

Some useful science resources I have discovered recently are:

Interactive Teaching in Science - the UK Dept. for children, schools and families national Strategies and Standards

CAST Science Writer - A free site for students to write up practical reports and submit by email, including writing prompts, text to speech reader and animated helpers. great for reluctant writers.

And for Writing Individual Learning Plans for Special Needs students -

Teaching Every Student Blog

Goal Bank for Students with Special Needs

I’d like to nominate Anne Mirtschin’s blog “ejourney with technokids” for the Best Teacher Blog in The Edublog Awards this year. Anne works enthusiastically with students from Hawkesdale P12 College, linking them with students from around the world. She has instigated many web 2.0 projects at the school, including student and teacher blogs, wikis and nings, Elluminate conferences, virtual worlds and game making.

Earlier this year our year 10 students attended the Science and Engineering Challenge at Deakin University in Geelong. One of the fun and interesting projects was to create a model hovercraft using a polystyrene meat tray, 9V battery, 1.5V motor, propeller and a few additional materials. You can find some instructions here. This will be a good end-of-year project for next week.

Another hands-on project that a couple of our Year 7 Science students have been working on is to design and build a model trebuchet – a medieval sling-shot. Sean found plans on the internet and he and Dylan sourced the materials and constructed the working model as shown below.

We only have three weeks left of school at Hawkesdale, before the Christmas holidays. Many of our year 7 to 9 students will be going on the Great Hawkesdale Bike Ride in the second last week, riding from Hawkesdale to Mt Eccles to Yambuk to Port Fairy and back to Hawkesdale. The remaining students will participate in an end-of-year program including kite making, gardening, sport and craft.

We look forward to 2010, when the school is implementing a Year 6/7 program using integrated units and flexible groupings to allow for individual differences. I may not contribute to this blog until we return to school at the end of January, so I would like to thank my readers for their comments and support and encourage fellow teachers and students to contact me for collaboratie projects, sharing teaching strategies or classroom ideas.

Photo Source

Year 8 students are continuing to learn about the Human Body Systems in Science this week. We have looked at the male and female reproductive systems and tried out the National Geographic “Incredible Human Machine” and the BBC Interactive Human Body – Puberty Demo. 

We have also learnt about reproduction in other animals and in plants. In the comments below, add a “Did you know…” with unusual facts about reproduction in other animals. Make sure you post a link to your own blog and write a brief account of reproduction in a specific animal.

Image source

Year 7 maths students are studying maps, scale and bearings over the next couple of weeks. They have created their own map of Treasure Island, showing a clear and accurate compass rose and realistic scale. Next they will write their own directions from the point of disembarking on the island to where the treasure is buried, using distance and true bearings. Students will be assessed using a rubric, created using Rubistar.

Photo Source

This week in Maths we are continuing our study of area, looking at the area of circles. Earlier in the year we measured the diameter and circumference of many different-sized circles and found the relationship between those values. We found that the ratio between the diameter and the circumference of a circle is a little more than 3. Archimedes, the famous Greek mathematician, accurately determined the value of ‘pi’ over 200 BC. We use pi = 3.14 or 22/7 as an estimate for calculations, as the real value is a never-ending (irrational) number. This value can be used to calculate the area of a circle. Students calculated the area of small, medium and large pizzas and then we used the prices of different pizzas from our local restaurant to calculate the value of different sizes and toppings.

The swine flu pandemic started in Mexico in 2009 and has caused at least 74 deaths in Australia. This graphic shows how scientists believe swine flu transferred to humans. This week many of our students and staff had the ’swine flu’ vaccination, to reduce the incidence of illness and absence from school. We are also studying the Immune System in year 8 science, so it is an opportune time to discuss the body’s defense against disease, how viruses cause disease and how vaccines work. Swine Flu lesson plans here. Swine flu news articles from the Australian. More about Human Diseases at National Geographic. Try the National Geographic Infectious Diseases quiz here.

Read the article from the Warrnambool Standard about a recent gastro-enteritis outbreak.  Create a pamphlet to be distributed at doctor’s clinics around Warrnambool, explaining the causes of the gastroenteritis outbreak. Make sure you list at least six general rules to prevent the spread of any contagious disease.

This term Year 8 students have started their unit on the Human Body looking at the Digestive, Circulatory, Respiratory and Reproductive systems. We have done practical experiments with food testing (sugars, starches, lipids and proteins) and lung capacity. The assessment for this unit will be to design an elite athlete – what physical characteristics enhance performance at an elite level? For example, a large heart will allow a greater volume of blood to collect oxygen for respiration and therefor a greater ability to produce energy. Some athletes do high-altitude training, which adapts the body to a low oxygen atmosphere. When they return to near sea-level, they can better utilize oxygen in the air.

Explore the Human Body with National Geographic and the BBC’s Interactive Human Body.

Today is Blog Action Day 2009, billed as the largest, single,  social event on the web.  This years topic is “Climate Change”, a topic I have keen interest and passionate concern about. I first heard the term ‘global warming’  twenty years ago, as an undergraduate at LaTrobe University. Back then, the research was just beginning and the results weren’t conclusive – scientists are cautious by nature. Now, ‘climate change’ is a term we hear in the media every day and an issue being addressed at every level of government and in most private enterprises.

“New Scientist” has produced an excellent page to help you understand the facts of climate change at: “Instant Expert: Climate Change”.  Since the Earth Summit in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997, many countries have agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, in an attempt to reduce the enhanced greenhouse effect. In 2007 the IPCC announced that global climate change is “very likely” to have a human cause. In 2009, many thousands of scientists around the world agree that an increase in temperature of more than 2 degrees Celcius will have catastrophic effects on agriculture, biodiversity and water resources, as well as increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. The east coast of Australia experienced such an extreme weather event a few weeks ago, when an estimated 140,000 tonnes of soil per hour was collected from central Australia and dumped on the coast and offshore. This dust actually had an ocean-fertilizing effect – adding nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphoros to the ocean that enabled increased phytoplankton growth. It has been estimated that an extra eight million tonnes of CO2 was captured by this phytoplankton. Mother Nature fighting back?

Which of the objects above could you use in a probability experiment to simulate the birth of a boy or girl? How would you calculate the theoretical probability of three girls in a row? Draw a tree diagram to show all the possible combinations of three children.

Go to the Probability Voicethread at http://voicethread.com/share/222931/ and add your answers to the problems shown.