I spent the morning digging out my car and shoveling the front sidewalk. I had a lot of help from my friend Ed. He came over with his snow blower and did most of the driveway. Thanks Ed. That saved my back and muscles. With the snow today, I would guess the total to be near 18-20 inches. Spring starts in three weeks – can’t wait.
We didn’t get much snow this year but we’re getting a big snow storm today. We have about 8-10 inches of snow so far and it’s supposed to snow tonight and into tomorrow. If you watch the video, you will see outside here in northeast Pennsylvania about 5:30 pm. I’m using two different cameras.
The beginning of the video is filmed with my Cannon PowerShot SD1100 IS and at the end of the video I have a little video using my new Kodak Zi8. As you can see, the Kodak has less grain in the low light.
I put this together in iMovie in just a few minutes. I’m teaching myself Final Cut and I hope to use F C in the future. The learning curve is pretty steep but Final Cut is awesome.
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This week in science class we made an eyeball from paper mache using water, newspaper, and glue. Currently, we are learning about the eye and vision. I have my students know the different parts of the eye and a general overview of how vision works. The vocabulary for this topic is the retina, rods, cones, lens, sclera, pupil, and Iris.
It’s a fun project that all students can do. First, we begin by blowing up a balloon to about the size of 10 or 15 cm in diameter. Then, rip thin strips of newspaper maybe one or 2 cm wide and 10 or 15 cm long. Dip the newspaper strips into the solution and wrap them around the balloon. The paper mache is made of water and glue. I have found in the past using this simple mixture makes great paper mache. It’s also easier to clean than using cornstarch or other powders.
By the second day, the students should have two or three coats of paper mache around their balloon. It’s best to have five or six coats of paper mache as this will give the eyeball strength. After the paper mache dries we paint the whole eyeball white, this represents the sclera. Next, they paint the iris color blue, green, brown, or turquoise in the classroom and the pupil is painted black. When this is done I test the students orally and by pointing out the different parts of the eye. I also asked them what are the part of the retina and what is their function. The two parts of the retina are the rods and cones. The rods detect lightness and darkness and the cones detect the color. Also, I ask why do we have a blind spot? The answer is that this is where the optic nerve is located.
This is a nice project for seventh grade science as it takes about three or four days to complete. The whole time they are making the eye, I am circulating around asking about the different parts and discussing how the eye works. The students enjoyed making it and they can take it home when they are done. Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
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Today, I’ll show you how to make a magic science square. I’m also experimenting with using my new flash player from On2 technologies flash encoder. As you can see, I’m using the On2 B6/encoder in the demo mode. I’m very happy with the results, and I’ll be sending them $39 for the encoder.
I’m the coach of the MathCounts team, and I like to do some gifted activities with the students. This activity combines both mathematics and science and is a favorite with the students. I usually start with a scientist and try to make the outcome his birthday.
The outcome is quite unexpected, as the students are picking what seems like five random numbers. When the numbers are summed up, or added together, they will find they have a certain number that looks familiar. We learned about ten different scientists so far and the year they were born, so they will be amazed to see a birth year of a famous scientist.
To begin, download the PDF of the Magic science square and watch the video to see how I picked the numbers to sum to a specific date. After you’ve summed the numbers, erase the numbers on the outside.
Give it a try and have fun.
My new software arrived in the mail on the Friday before Christmas. I decided to buy MacSpeech Dictate because my typing skills are not that good and I read some good posts about the latest in speech recognition.
Last month, I read an article on Pro-blogger by Jon about how speech recognition software is much better [...]
This past week I had the opportunity to go inside a large plastic bag and have the air sucked out. Why would I do this? I did it because this demonstration was about air pressure. When the air is sucked out of the bag, one feels the combined air pressure of 14.7 psi. It [...]
My eighth grade classes launched their water rockets last month. I took video of the students and their rockets and now have it posted to our school’s website. I made an iMovie from all the video clips. I originally had it as a twenty minute video, but I edited it down to about four minutes [...]
It’s been quite a ride these last few months. Our son was born in July and my wife had some serious childbirth complications. It was almost August before we were all home. September was difficult with the new baby, starting school and caring for my wife. We are now just getting back to normal and [...]
My wife and I continue to wait for the birth of our son any day now. Meanwhile, It’s summer vacation and I continue to take language lessons in the Philippine language of Bisaya. My Bisaya lesson went well on Tuesday night. We usually start around 8:30 pm EST, which is 8:30 am Philippine time. Usually [...]
From our tree house on the beach, I could see another island out into the sea. This is our second day now since we first came here on the ferry and went down the east coast. After we visited the bat caves and spent a stormy night in a tree house in Kaputian, it [...]
