Week 14 Blog Post

1. What did you learn this week? 

This week we learned about particles and talked about why the plunger push works. Our groups original idea was that the air gets pushed out creating a vacuum.  We then talked about the difference between melting and dissolving. Which we learned consisted of a phase change and and energy transfer.

2. Which parts did you find clear and what was confusing?

During lab, I found the toilet plunger portion a little confusing. My group struggled to find a way to explain suction in kid language, and how we could potentially explain it in our classrooms. We were stuck initially, but when we met with other groups, it helped us understand the concepts a little deeper. I think it's interesting that a lot of this course is explaining things we see commonly in the world around us, but we have to find ways to explain them with kid friendly language, which is an interesting switch to what we are used to.

3. How can you apply what you have learned to your teaching in the future?

The use of picture books to allow students to start thinking of scientific concepts before fully engaging with the information is a good approach to not overwhelm them all at once in my opinion. I like how we talked about circling back on the book at the end of the lesson as well to allow them to try and figure out the ending is a great way to wrap a lesson as well. I also think making a flip book and recording a video is a cool way of getting students to engage with the material in a new medium for presenting information.