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Keystone
Weekly This week's Key Points:
*Kit Use: Mixtures and Solutions (FOSS)*
and *Climate and Global Change
Workshop*
Kit Use Through a KSN
Teacher's Eyes: Mixtures and Solutions (FOSS) Maureen Benner, fifth grade teacher and enthusiastic kit user, is back with her final installment. This time, we'll discuss Maureen's experiences with FOSS's Mixtures and Solutions kit. In Mixtures and Solutions, students learn some of the basic concepts of chemistry: mixtures and solutions, dissolution, concentration, saturation, reaction, evaporation, and crystallization. They measure, mix, and compare solids and liquids, and observe and describe the interactions that result from their experiments. Maureen has only worked with this kit once so far, but it proved to be fun and challenging for her and her students. The teacher's guide was "excellent, detailed, and easy to follow" and she says that although preparation takes time, it is not complicated, and the materials are easy to use. Maureen has an hour for science, but she soon learned that some of the lessons took longer than one hour to complete, so she had to break them into two periods. She found that the topic of concentration was difficult for her students to grasp, but they loved studying chemical reactions. She says, "Since they were able to experience a chemical reaction, they really understood the concept." The hands-on elements were useful tools in other concept areas as well, commenting that "having the students try to separate mixtures and solutions really helped them understand the difference between the two." Both Maureen and her class had a lot of enthusiasm for this kit. She's especially fond of the fact that there are so many experiments that can be done for this topic, saying, "The borax experiment to show saturation is great. I had all of my students make their own crystals. The students loved their home connection sheets." In addition to the kit experiments, Maureen also found a lot of great ideas for extensions in a book called Kitchen Chemistry. Maureen's looking forward to working with Mixtures and Solutions again and would gladly recommend it to others.
Climate and Global
Change Geoscience Education Workshop Are you a middle school teacher interested in geosciences? The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado is sponsoring a workshop in the summer of 2002 to provide standards-relevant science content, training on easy to implement inquiry-based classroom activities, and a broad overview of the geosciences to educator-leaders who are teaching sciences at the middle and high school levels. This 12-day workshop (including one day off) will explore all aspects of the geosciences related to climate and global change. Participants will experience presentations by leaders in scientific research, training in hands-on and computer-based activities, field trips, project work, and discussions about pedagogy, educational standards, dissemination, and follow-up. Participants will be selected based on the content and grade levels taught; geographic, gender, and ethnic diversity; professional experience; and demonstrated leadership in training other teachers. NCAR will provide support for participants' travel from their home to and from Boulder, as well as a $700 stipend, lodging, and meals while at the workshop. Participants will also receive an extensive set of educational resources. The deadline for receipt of applications is April 5, 2002. For more details and the application form, click on the link above.
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| The Franklin Institute gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the National Science Foundation and Unisys Corporation. | |||
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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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