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Keystone
Weekly This week's Key Points:
*Kit Use: Motion and Design (STC),* *Web Pick of the Week,* and *Science Workshop* Kit Use Through a KSN Teacher's Eyes: Motion and Design Kathy Massey, a teacher at Fugett Middle School in the West Chester Area School District, has used STC's Motion and Design kit to augment science curricula over several grade levels. Motion and Design challenges students to explore the physics of motion and relate these concepts to technological design. Students design and build vehicles of their own, applying concepts of such as friction and kinetic and potential energy. Kathy's district purchased this kit along with several others to supplement the elementary science curriculum. Motion and Design is a fourth grade kit, and Kathy was able to use it with two different sets of students at different grade levels. It proved to be a useful complement to her Force and Motion unit in seventh grade science, and she also used the kit as a Summer Science curriculum for third and fourth graders. "Using the entire kit was fun and held the interest of the students in Summer Science," she says, adding, "Just doing the activities let them learn basic physics concepts without realizing it." And even though the kit was intended for that age group, it translated well (and was sometimes even better suited) to the work of the older students. She notes in particular that "it was fun for the seventh graders to explore potential energy using the K'NEX vehicles," and using these vehicles "helped solidify the concept of transfer of energy." Working with her seventh graders, Kathy skipped to the schematic (Lesson 4) and she reports that "several groups had difficulty making the vehicle as per the schematic." Kathy finds that set-up takes a bit of time, but says the manual does an excellent job of showing the teacher how to prepare. Basic content information is useful too. "STC does a wonderful job of giving background information to the teacher to help him or her better understand the concept. The step-by-step directions are very understandable," she says. Due to time constraints, Kathy finds it useful to rework some areas, as she explains, "I don't use the student manuals cover-to-cover. I extract forms and often rewrite the procedure to consolidate or streamline my lesson. It's not that I don't like the student manuals; it's a matter of the time I have for the lesson." One of the major difficulties, Kathy found, lay not with the kit or lessons but with the students' ability to read and follow directions. Kathy recommends Motion and Design to other teachers, but does caution that she finds it important to try the activities yourself beforehand, and warns that prep time may increase. Keeping time in mind, Kathy recommends "picking and choosing lessons if [you] do not have time to use the whole kit."
Web Pick of the
Week Scientists at NASA are searching for "the edge of sunshine," the limit of our sun's reach. This web resource details NASA's solar energy research in space. The next time you're exploring the topic of solar energy, consider "The Edge of Sunshine," an intriguing new twist on a familiar idea. In case you haven't discovered it yet, NASA has an amazing collection of websites for teachers and students, covering a huge range of topics. If you'd like to explore them, this is a good place to start: http://www.nasa.gov
Keystone Science Network participant Ed Owens (of the Capital Area Institute for Math and Science) has developed an outdoor classroom activity along with Diane Vaszily, author and naturalist. Taking place from June 25 to July 2, 2002, this workshop is an opportunity to network with other science teachers while learning about the ecology, geology, culture, and archeology of the Arizona Grand Canyon area. Participants will have a chance to explore the Grand Canyon, Montezuma's Castle and Well, lava flows and cinder cones of the Sunset Crater, Meteor Crater, Walnut Canyon, visit Red Rock Church, climb Bell Rock, and much more. Congratulations to Ed for organizing such a neat event. If you'd like to learn more about it, email him at eowens@mathscience.org. By the way, although it is not the stated intent, this summer experience sounds to us like a perfect introduction for those intending to use the FOSS Middle School Earth History kit. FOSS designed their experiences to help students learn to "read" rocks and landforms and to re-construct an area's long and often complex history; in FOSS' case focusing specifically on Arizona and the geology of the Grand Canyon. First-hand experience with the materials and data encountered throughout the kit is not a pre-requisite to using it, but it could not help but instill a comfort level with the content you'd be facilitating. Besides, the best place to learn geology is outdoors!
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The Franklin Institute is the Demonstration Site for the
Eisenhower
Mid-Atlantic Consortium, providing science and math
resources for teachers.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9819641. © 2003. All rights reserved.
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