They were all up last night at 2 am, running around the house, playing with their toys and making lots of noise. I tried keeping them up during the day but they fell asleep before lunch.

Last week I moved all my science projects out of the living room and back to my lab at school. The solar panel is complete, just need to calk the clear panel to the top.

Now it’s time to get ready for Christmas and get everything back to normal.

The Peg System ties everything together and make it easy to remember all kinds of things. I usually call both these systems just the Peg System. Once you get the basics down, it’s not that hard to use and it makes it much easier to remember content, especially numbers and dates.

Watch the video below and see how I use the Peg System to remember a small list of items. You can review the Major System in my previous post here.

Here are the basics of the Major system and how to learn it.

Remember, when translating, it always goes by how it sounds and not the spelling.

Here is my first post on using the Major System.

Synthesizing is creating something new using different sources.

When learning different dates and small packets of information, the students can make connections. For example, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison were born in the same year, 1847. One of my students asked me if they ever met each other and I said that’s a good question. I encouraged the student to find the answer and do a report.

How I use the Major System

In my classroom I have been teaching The Major System and the Peg system for almost 20 years.  I’ve used it in gifted classes when I taught for the college gifted programs during the summer and  also in my special education classes where I have a variety of students at different ability levels.

Here are the numbers to letters conversions.

I believe the Major System system helps students remember what they learn and helps them achieve at higher levels. Having a trained memory, using good study techniques, and employing the techniques of good storytelling are the pillars of good teaching and help students achieve at the highest level.

To teach for comprehension and understanding, It’s very important for students to build their background knowledge as everything flows from that. This is why I spend time in the beginning of the school year to teach my students a system to help them build their background knowledge.

Daniel T. Willingham in his book Why Don’t Students Like School says,

Background knowledge allows chunking, which makes more room in working memory, which makes it easier to relate ideas, and therefore to comprehend.

Not only does background knowledge make you a better reader, but it also is necessary to be a good thinker.

Comprehension depends on background knowledge.

Einstein said:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

But I believe Einstein had it wrong. Knowledge is more important because it’s a prerequisite for imagination. I used to believe the opposite, but there is a relationship between increased background knowledge and increased imagination.

The benefits of using the Major System

In this age of high-stakes testing it is important for students to remember content to be proficient. I have found that once the facts are learned using the Major System, they become like magnets- the students find more relevant information related to the new information learned.

Having more background knowledge is also one of the most important factors in being creative. With more background knowledge it is easier to make more connections between and among topics and ideas that are not related. The Major System  increases background knowledge of the content vocabulary, number sense and comprehension.

According to Marilee Sprenger,

Explicitly teaching memory strategies improve student achievement.

I believe the Major System helps my students achieve more at a higher level and the major system also gives them confidence to remember math and science content.

Professor Arthur Benjamin Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, teaches a memory class using this same system. Dr. Benjamin is Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College. He has a video preview of his memory class here.

To help students achieve, I teach the Major System in the beginning of the year. It only takes a few minutes in the beginning of each class. After we get the basics down in a few days, I show them how the Peg system works. Using the Peg system and the Major System while telling a funny story makes it easy to remember many numbers and other content. I also tell the students about Agent 42 and how she could beat me when dividing by 91.

I usually teach the basics about Albert Einstein such as when he was born and what his major contribution was. It’s interesting that he was born on March 14 which is considered pi day or 3.14. So this is my reason for picking pie to train our minds on using the major system.

Over the years, I taught my students the Major System and the peg system.  It wasn’t until after I read books by Daniel T. Willingham and others that verified my classroom experience. And that is, having a trained memory helps increase background knowledge, which in turns helps students reading comprehension and achieve at a higher level.

I’ve always believed, and have witnessed in my classroom, that the more one knows the more connections one can make. And that is at the heart of higher-level thinking: making connections and synthesizing information. To do this one needs a large background knowledge on many topics. It really is the more you know the more connections you can make and the more you can learn.  The research supports this. Students have come to school with a higher vocabulary achieve at higher levels than those that have smaller vocabularies.

When it comes to knowledge those who have more gain more. Willingham

Robert J. Marzano writes that

While different kinds of background knowledge can be important to students depending on their interest and non-academic areas of their life, it is academic background knowledge that most affects a future tied to academic achievement.

By the end of the first week my students know the basics and we’re ready to start training. We usually learn the birth dates of some of the scientists and mathematicians.

Our first scientist, Albert Einstein, was born in 1879.  I’ll show shortly how to remember this year. As the students get better we need to train on some of the things to get better.

I picked pi, as that’s the birthday for Albert Einstein. Many people using the Major System try their memory on this irrational number. My students are amazed that they’re able to rattle off the numbers without much effort. It gives them great confidence in their math and science abilities to do something they never thought they could do.

I wrap the peg system and the major system into a funny story about how Agent 77 and Agent 99 are lost on a distant planet and the crazy adventures they go through to get home.  This is how I teach and I’m willing to share.

How it works

The major system translates numbers into letters. The letters represent consonants in a word. We have to add the vowels to make words, and we make words into a story. Everything is translated by how it sounds, not how it is spelled. We then translate the story back into the original numbers. Once learned, this system is very powerful.

 Next

Next post I’ll show using a video how I translate pi and dates using the Major System into a funny story, and, if you’re willing to put in a little time, how to remember pi to 100 digits. It’s really not that hard.

The students learned how to measure the volume of a liquid using the graduated cylinder, beaker and petri dish. They also learned how to read and interpret the meniscus, the line that one sees between the liquid and air in the graduated cylinder.  The students learned how to use the graduated cylinder, beaker and petri dish.I hope to post video there every week showing what we are doing in the classroom and to give the students experience demonstrating the important concepts.  Like they say, those that explain, retain.

You can see the video  and read the blog here.

Completing the solar panel

I finished my solar panel project this week. I’ve been working on it on and off for the past two years and it’s finally done. The only thing I need to complete is to put the clear acrylic panel on top to protect the cells.

Here are my previous posts on building the solar panel. Part 1 gives information on the parts I bought to build the 18 volt, 60 watt PV solar panel. Part 2 describes my frustration of learning to solder the cells and the time needed to do this well. Part 3 describes my attempt to solder the tab wire to the negative part of the cell and how I’m going to wire the cells to produce the correct voltage.  This last post will summarize the task of completing the solar panel before school starts and what my future plans are with solar power panels.

Video of the completed solar panel

It took me a couple of days to complete all the soldering. I got better at it as I went along and only broke a few cells. Luckily I bought enough and I still have about ten left. The hardest part was dealing with corrosion that built up on the tip of the soldering pen and getting an even flow of solder to flow onto the three positive connections on the back of the cell. I had to scrap a few cells because of poor solder connections.

As you can see from this image, the back of each cell has six places that need to be soldered. This side is the positive side and was the hardest part to solder because each of the six squares needed to have a small piece of solder deposited before I could solder using the tabbing wire. Some people recommend that you hold down the tabbing wire with a small piece of wood when you are soldering them together, but I found that a small book worked better and was not too heavy.

 Assembling the cells

After all the cells were completed, I had three strings of twelve for a total of 36 cells. Each cell has 0.5 volts so this should give a total output of 36/2= 18 volts.

I was now ready to attach the cells to the inside panel. I put a small drop of silicone on the back of each cell and gently pressed them into place in the panel box. After I had them  lined up in three rows, I soldered the rows together in series using the larger tabbing wire. I then used some spare wire I had to make the final connection between the positive end and the negative end to complete the solar panel.

The big test

I actually completed the solar panel and wiring  in the middle of August, but I couldn’t test it as it was raining for days on end. I did take a quick reading inside by the window then and read 4 volts. I thought maybe one of the cells was not soldered correctly, but thankfully, it was due to the clouds and rain condition. This past Friday I went to school to test the solar panel as it was a bright sunny day. On the first measurement, I recorded 19.0 volts. It made my day knowing the solar panel was working correctly. It went up to 19.1 volts in all sun and down to 18.3 when a cloud passed by. The total cost for this project was about  $160.00. I didn’t need to buy some small pieces of wire, screws and paint as I already had some laying around. The biggest cost was the solar cells.

What’s next

My next task is to research and find a deep cycle battery and an inverter to connect to the panel. The battery is a very important part of the system as it stores the energy to power any appliances. This panel may only light a 60 watt bulb for a short time, but I will investigate other types of lights like LED lights and other small appliances to see how long they can be powered using one or two panels. I also may try and build another solar panel using all acrylic and no wood. This solar panel that I just completed would never hold up on a roof for very long and that was not the intention here. I will put in in the sun during the day and bring it in at night.

My goal was and is to learn as much as possible about manufacturing low cost photovoltaic systems (PV systems) that can be made and used in the Philippines. The Philippines already has some of the largest solar manufacturing plants producing the worlds solar cells. The problem is that the cells manufactured in the Philippines are exported to other countries because of the high cost and regular Filipinos not being able to afford these systems.

I believe that bringing this do-it-yourself solar panels, make-your-own-technology to the Philippines will help with innovation in making and using low cost panels. Professional made PV systems are expensive because of the very high manufacturing cost associated with the solar panels designed to last 20 – 30 years, or more. I believe the cost can be greatly reduced if more people are given a chance to experiment with ( play with) and design smaller systems to last in the 3-5 year range. These smaller systems could be brought in during the night to save on wear and tear due to moisture, rain, and general outdoor conditions.

This was a great project for me to build. It’s a good example of bridging the gap between theory and practice. Much is written on building PV systems and the electrical theory involved, but few people actually build the solar panels and experiment with them. Everything doesn’t have to last 30 years. I’m sure there are better and more cost efficient way to assemble these panels that haven’t been discovered yet. Filipinos are very resourceful and need to have solar electricity development in their economy. Given the Philippines’ abundant sunshine and its large work force, solar power and the Philippines is a perfect fit.

• It’s been a few weeks since school got out and it’s taken me this long to decompress and I’m back to normal now.
• It’s summer vacation and I got a few things planned. I’m taking the family camping next week. We’ll be in New York and New Hampshire.

• I’ve been working on my Bisaya vocabulary and reviewing my past lessons so I don’t forget what I’ve learned.

• I made another rocket launcher and I have more in production. Hope to get them on Siyensya with some added value videos.

• I am now a vegetarian, at least most of the time to start. More on this later.
• Finished reading The Language of Science and Faith ,  Eating Animals, and The Death and Life of the Great American School System. I am reading The story i , and A Mathematicians Lament.
• Got plans to complete the solar panel I started two years ago. I have all the parts, just need to solder all the cells and wire it together. I’ll get to in August and have an update post here.
• Enjoy your summer.

This week I gave a demonstration of the egg in the bottle to my classes. This is a favorite demo and I always enjoy doing it. This is a good demo when learning about pressure. To start, burn a piece of paper and put it into the bottle and quickly put the hard boiled egg on top. As the fire goes out, the pressure inside goes down and the higher pressure on the outside pushes the egg in.

Here is a link to my last science lab- the hexaflexagon, which we did last week and you can see the video to learn how to construct and add content to the hexaflexagon.

I have seen this egg demo using a small water balloon and it works the same. To get the egg out, you can try to blow into the bottle which has never worked for me. I usually use an Alka Seltzer and water to pop the egg out. I have also used putting the bottle under hot water to warm the air inside the bottle to expand and push egg back out.

Extensions and discussion

It’s difficult for students to visualize a change in pressure until they see this demonstration. Some of the students have experience going under the water and experiencing increased pressure in their ears, and that helps to understand the concept.  For the egg here, it’s the pressure difference that pushes the egg in.

Also, be careful to explain that the lack of oxygen alone doesn’t “suck” the egg in. After I question the students, I explain how the egg goes in and then have them explain to their lab partner. At the end of the class, I have them write their explanation on paper about the egg demo and hand it in so I can check for any misunderstanding.

Making and encoding the video

Here is my latest video on the egg in the bottle video. Again, I used iMovie and since the demo is short, I used a movie trailer. This worked out well as the audio has music and the audio from the classroom was very chaotic. I encoded the flv video as the highest level, which gave me a file size of about 39 meg.

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This week we built hexaflexagons in class and added science content on each of the four sides. I thought since the water cycle has four main vocabulary terms, it would be creative to put one vocabulary word on each of the four sides. We also used this for the layers of the atmosphere. Hexaflexagons have four sides and can be constructed with only one piece of paper.

This activity builds enthusiasm for learning science and is a good hands-on activity– much like the great bag of science. See the video gallery for all the science videos here.

History of the hexaflexagon

I first learned about hexaflexagon from Martin Gardner when I was in college.  In his book, Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions, Gardner shows a few different ways to construct a flexagon and hexaflexagon. Even though Gardner wrote about the hexaflexagons, others are given credit for their discovery. A graduate student named Authur Stone, while at Princeton University, created the first flexagon by playing around with some paper in math class.

This is a fun activity to do when you have four of something. I also did this with another science class with the layers of the atmosphere.

Here is the video on how to construct your own hexaflexagon. I made this video with iMovie and did a voiceover to give directions on how to construct the hexaflexagon. I exported with mpeg-4 as a Quicktime movie and encoded to flash using iSkysoft Video Converter.

How to fold the hexaflexagon

Start with a piece of paper with the length twice as long as the width. From there, follow my video instructions to complete your own hexaflexagon. Students can add content before or after it’s done. We have made both small and very large hexaflexagons in class over the last few years. Using colored markers is easier that colored pencils as the markers don’t press in on the paper. Remember, the better you make the creases, the easier the hexaflexagon will turn. Watch the video for directions.

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