Keystone Weekly
volume 1, issue 15       January 28, 2000

This week's Key Points: *From the Director's Desk,* *Kit Connections,* and *On the Lighter Side*
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From the Director's Desk

Re-scheduling the Winter Colloquium:
I certainly hope everyone either got our message or correctly assumed on their own that the January 26 colloquium was canceled. We did endeavor to make the decision and spread the word as early and as widely as possible on Tuesday. Earlier last fall we floated the possibility of February 1 as a snow date alternative, but its proximity to the original date didn't provide much opportunity to re-schedule sub coverage and site availability also became problematic. We have instead placed tentative holds on two dates later in the month: Friday, February 25 or Monday, February 28.

Since towards the end, our numbers grew to the point we were exceeding the room capacity at the Montgomery County IU, we are now seeing The Franklin Institute as the more comfortable site. I'd like to quickly confirm which date we will use, so am requesting that any site which has strong preferences or major conflicts/problems with either date notify us by end-of-day Tuesday, February 1. We will take responses into account, firm up arrangements and get a confirmation out by the end of next week, so that everyone may proceed with making needed arrangements. We are hopeful that we can again garner the very high level of attendance expected last week, and that our tenth site can now join us also. (We are also counting on last week's being the only major storm facing us this winter. If you know any anti-snow dances, please do them!)

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Kit Connections

Carol Strough of Northeastern School District will be featured for her classroom kit practice next week on KSN's journal page.

A webpage called: "The pH Factor" supports Carol's STC kit "Chemical Tests" by introducing acids and bases to elementary students. The science of pH is not specifically taught to third grade students because the concept is complicated. However, the kit has activities using red cabbage as an indicator which dovetail nicely with the website content. Within this site there are a number of avenues to explore. Teachers can get ideas for introducing chemical concepts or target approaches to classroom practice. Students can access interactive activities that help promote their understanding. Information is organized around a framework called the "Seven E's" which is essentially an educational model of inquiry science. Teachers may want to explore this site for pedagogical reasons as well as content because the format is interesting. For example, teachers who use the classroom computer as an online workstation can allow either individual students or groups to use any of the "E" interactive activities that will enrich the student's connection to the kit content. In addition, that same "E"-button will provide the teacher with a breakdown of student and teacher objectives that may be helpful for planning. The site has workable resources and is worth investigating.

Here's the link: http://www.miamisci.org/ph

Teachers who would like background information about pH and general chemistry may find this site helpful:
http://library.thinkquest.org/3659/acidbase/ph.html

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This anecdote was sent to us by Susie Brobston:

Object Lesson
According to a radio report, a middle school in Oregon was faced with a unique problem. A number of girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put their lipstick on they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance guy to clean one of the mirrors. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it into the toilet, and then cleaned the mirror. Since then there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers, and then there are TEACHERS!

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This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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