This week my classes researched and made a volcano to demonstrate to the class. The project involved making a volcano resume and building the volcano. They were to present to the class about the volcano and demonstrate how the volcano works. I only let them use baking soda and vinegar because of safety reasons. They can add some soap and a few drops of food coloring to the volcano which will give a realistic look of the lava.
Careful with other solutions demonstrating the volcano
Don’t let them use Mentos and soda to demonstrate the volcano project as this will create a large mess in the classroom and will attract bugs and insects. The Mentos and soda should be done outside on another project. I don’t think using them for the volcano project is a good idea. See my other science videos on the video gallery page here.
Keep the class volcano projects moving along
To help keep thinks moving along, I employ a few strategies for the classroom.
I keep an index card of each group with their names and class period for each volcano project.
I use the index cards to show the order of who is going first and the next six groups.
When the group project is ready to present, I staple the index card to their grade sheet. This helps keep track of what they did and helps me find the location of this group on the video.
I always require 10 points in the presentation for cleanup of the volcano, ensuring that they learn to help clean up.
I made a grade sheet for each group using this rubric from Science Scope. Use it and change it for your need and let me know how it worked for you. Tweet
Last week we did the great bag of science demo in class. In this video, I get in the bag and a vacuum is used to take out the air. The greater pressure on the outside squeezes the person inside. How much air pressure? Well it’s 14.7 psi. That doesn’t sound like much, but is sure feels strong.
I did this activity with all my students and it was a long day yet lots of fun.
If you have any extensions, comments, or ideas let me know in the comments.
I’m taking a mathematics training class after school on Tuesday and I’ve developed a Google form document to gather some responses. Let me know what you think about Club 91, Fast 50 and the peg system given in class.
For videos showing how Fast 50 works, click here for part A and here for Part B
Bryan McClelland, an entrepreneur in Manila, Philippines, is making bikes out of bamboo. Seems like a good idea as there is lots of bamboo available for a raw material. Some of the bike parts are made of metal. His claim is that bamboo has the same tensile strength as steel and a higher strength to weight ratio. He sells them for between 500 and 600 dollars. Check out the video below. So would you ride one of these bikes? I would.
Today was the northeast Pennsylvania regional MathCounts competition. It was held at the Penn State Worthington campus in Dunmore. We left school early this morning, around 7:30 am and arrived at 8:15am. After checking in, the team ate donuts provided by the MathCounts and university.
There were thirteen teams competing. They started with the target round, followed by the sprint round. After a short break, the team round was given. My A team was a little nervous, but it turned out, they did pretty good, taking third place overall. For lunch, we all had chicken and pasta in a room adjacent to the student cafeteria. After lunch, it was time for the countdown round. We has one student finish 4th, but did not advance. During the competition, WNEP Ch 16 arrived and took some video. They had a story on the local news tonight and I have the link below.
Update: Our number 5 student will attend the state competition in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on March 18th. Congratulations K. , I know you will do well there.
I don’t have cable tv or dish network anymore. I was tired of paying for channels that I don’t watch so I canceled the dish subscription. I usually watch shows on the internet and I also have a Netflix account to watch some movies. I think the Netflix model is the way to go in the future. Sometimes, though, I want to see the local news and some of the local sports on the tv.
When the tv signals were changed to digital, it was possible to get a digital converter so one could watch the local shows. I bought the converter at Target and a digital antenna. After I got it all hooked together, the reception wasn’t that great and I only got six channels.
After reading and watching some videos on the internet, I decided to build a antenna out of old coat hangers. I watched three videos on how to build the antenna to get the basic instructions. Here, here, and here are the videos I watched.
I then gathered all the supplies and built the antenna in a few hours last Saturday. It was not that hard at all. After putting it outside, I was glad to see that I now receive 12 channels with very good reception. In the spring, I’ll put the antenna up higher to try and get a few more channels. I may also put some foil backing to increase the reception.
A closeup view
So if you’re looking for an inexpensive antenna for local channels, give it a try.
Here is a cool website where Robin guesses the gift you are thinking of. Take a number between 10 and 99 and subtract the first and second digit. Then use this number to find the corresponding gift. Just think of the gift and Robin will guess what it is.
Click the image to go to the site and give it a try. I’ll give some hints on how this works in the comments. Try it a few times and see if you can find the number theory behind Robin.
Happy New Year, it’s 2011. I had some time today to finally upgrade to the latest version of Headway, 2.06. I had the old version of 1.0 and the last time I tried to update, I almost lost everything. Today, things went smoother and the upgrade went well except for a few small glitches.
I learned my lesson from last time and made a complete backup of the site. I have the backup on my hard drive and on my server. I’m still working with video and have learned a great deal about web video. Yesterday I had some time to work on a technique called green screen. I got it working in iMovie09 and I’ll post a small video using this technique.
Other than that, I’ve been spending time with my family and taking it easy. Easy like reading books on science and web video and shopping with the family. With time being the limiting factor, I would like to spend 90% of my time on content and the other 10% maintaining the site. It should be easier now since Headway and WordPress can now be automatically updated, saving a lot of time.
I gave a demonstration of dry ice to my students last week. Here is a video showing what the graduated cylinder looked like at the end of the day. I put a few drops of red food coloring in the water and then put a few pieces of dry ice in the water.
I have this drinking bird on my desk and the kids can’t stop watching it. It keeps drinking the water all day long. As long as I keep adding water to the beaker, the bird will keep drinking. It’s not really drinking the water, just dipping its beak in the water. The water evaporates and cools the beak, thus the liquid moves up.
The temperature decrease causes some of the dichloromethane vapor in the head to condense.
The lower temperature and condensation together cause the pressure to drop in the head (ideal gas law).
The pressure differential between the head and base causes the liquid to be pushed up from the base.
As liquid flows into the head, the bird becomes top heavy and tips over during its oscillations.
When the bird tips over, the bottom end of the neck tube rises above the surface of the liquid.
A bubble of vapor rises up the tube through this gap, displacing liquid as it goes.
Liquid flows back to the bottom bulb (the toy is designed so that when it has tipped over the neck’s tilt allows this), and vapor pressure equalizes between the top and bottom bulbs
The weight of the liquid in the bottom bulb restores the bird to its vertical position
I made a grade sheet for each group using this rubric from Science Scope. Use it and change it for your need and let me know how it worked for you.
