ULearn16: Breakout Five - Hands on science workshop with NanoGirl and OMGTech!

When I went through the breakouts menu and this option came up I was pretty excited.  NanoGirl, aka Michelle Dickinson, is the science poster girl for New Zealand.  She has given science a prominence few others have in the media and she is raising the profile and coolness of science among the student population.

I personally have a mixed relationship to science.  At primary school it wasn't something I actually thought about specifically.  At my primary school I remember us doing bush studies, stream studies, rocky shore studies and going over to the principal's house to look at flowers.  At high school it was a mixed bag.  I really liked chemistry (I love reactions), but biology was a bit so-so (especially trying to understand eye colour and familiar relations!) and physics may as well have been Greek to me.

As a teacher I have tended to favour topics such as kitchen science (chemistry), space, animals, water, testing material, eggs.... the most memorable foray into physics was a push and pull topic.

So I choose this breakout partly to fangirl a bit, but also to see what Michelle had to offer us teachers in inspiration for teaching science.  This is the blurb that was put up on the ULearn breakout page:

This workshop is designed to give hands on experience with different science experiments for primary school level education. Science is traditionally perceived as a difficult subject requiring expensive equipment and specialist knowledge.
In this fast paced 60 minute workshop, different experiments will be carried out while following a teacher’s guide pack to show how simple science experiments can be and how curiosity led learning can tie in to curriculum based topics. With over a decade of academic teaching experience and a passion for getting students more interested in science and technology, Dr Michelle Dickinson will be able to answer any of your science questions while you try each of the experiments yourself.

Below is my Storify of my tweets and pictures.

Sadly, Storify has deleted itself from the Social Media scene, so all my Storify stories have gone.  😭😭😭😭😭

When I walked into the room I grabbed one of these brochures off the table.  OMGTech has been set up to give every primary & intermediate school in NZ the opportunity to take part in its award winning workshops over the next three years.  It appears they use volunteers to provide these experiences.  They are also providing teachers with inspiration and ready to go plans to take back to the classroom.

When I sad down at the table, these items were on the table... and every other table.  This was my first clue that we would be having an interactive session.

 At the beginning of the session, we got some sad news... no NanoGirl today.  Sadly she had a clashing engagement.  However, they had sorted out an able replacement, Paula Hay (aka @heymrshay) from Network for Learning and a science teacher, to step in.  Paula did a fabulous job.

We were asked to get a balloon and a skewer first.  The challenge was to make a balloon kebab, with the skewer going from one end to the other.  This was scary for me as I really hate it when balloons pop in my hands or near me.

Balloons started pop, pop, popping all over the room.

I figured that going in the blowing up end of the balloon was probably the best thing to do.  And apparently it is the way to go because the polymers at that part of the balloon are not so stretched and degraded.  So I got the skewer in, paused for the photo and then proceeded to piece the other side.  As you can see, I was successful and did not pop my balloon.

However, you can see that over the rest of the session it continued to deflate slowly.

Our next activity was an old favourite, vinegar and baking soda.  So I poured the vinegar into our small as lemonade bottle, while the teachers on the other side of the table tipped baking soda into the balloon.  Tip: use the funnel to help you get the baking soda into the balloon before using it to get the vinegar into the funnel.

Then she twisted the balloon so that the baking soda was contained and secured the end of the balloon over the bottle opening.  She then untwisted the balloon and let the reaction begin.

 The reaction happened and this is how much our balloon inflated.  So we decided to do it again.

So we used more vinegar, more baking soda, and being responsible teachers, we used the bucket in case of disaster.

 I'd say we got a bigger inflation this time.

We did find that some of the liquid ended up inside the balloon and then the balloon flopped down.  So you could get kids to experiment with what the optimum amounts of vinegar and baking soda may be for optimum inflation and erection.

 Next we were asked to grab a bowl and tip enough milk into it to cover the bottom.  There were four food dye colours available for us to use.

We also put some dishwashing liquid into another bowl and we needed to have a cotton bud each.

We put food colouring around the edge of the milk, then dipped our cotton bud into the dishwashing liquid.

Then you dip your cotton bud into the milk and watch the magic happen.

 I decided to try this again from scratch.

Cool as aye!

Now I asked on Twitter what I would be doing with this lot in the photo.  One cheeky tweeter tweeted back that I was making fondue.  Sadly, no.

I was actually making a catapult.  Here is my step by steps:

And here are my videos of failure... well my first attempt at using my catapult was the best... if only I had longer to problem solve it out more....

This was one of the best breakouts I have ever attended.  It was reminiscent of what the old Advisory Service used to be like, practical and hands on, before former Education Minister Anne Tolley killed them off in 2009.

If you get the opportunity to work with OMGTech at any point, do so.  I am now wondering what their coding and robotics breakouts are like.....

By the way, OMGTech is in The Pond.

ActivClassroom: Actively engaging students in a modern learning environment

The last breakout I went to at ULearn12 was the ActivBoard one.  My class has had a SmartBoard since the beginning of Term 4 2011, but there was no SmartBoard presentation at ULearn12, so I decided to go to the ActivBoard one because I figured somethings just cross credit!!
 
This breakout was led by Rachel Clapp.  You can follow ActivBoard on Twitter at @ACTIVboardNZ which tweets updates and ideas.
 
Rachel began with the classic You Tube Clip Did You Know which has been updated for 2012.  It is a great thought provoker and gets discussion moving.
 
Then Rachel talked about Flip Charts.  To know how to make a Flip Chart go to this You Tube clip.  Rachel showed us a Flip Chart called Rugby World Cup.  It uses a reveal tool so kids can check the answers.

Top Tip:  Download flipcharts from Promethean Planet for free:  http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/.  Some top contributers to look for are:

• Barb Knapp  NE-Y4 - maths resources you'll want to steal
• Pat Verhoeven  Y5-8 - maths resources

Rachel then introduced us to poet Kenn Nesbitt - he has great poetry for kids.  She recommended using his poem videos for sequencing.  She showed us how to change the colours of words to highlight verbs, adjectives, etc.  My class loved his poems when I introduced them.  They really appeal to kids and have lovely twists.  We did our own podcasts and created PhotoStorys to go with the poems.

Build Your Wild Self - this lets you make a new character and you have a choice of body, hair, eyes, mouth, clothes, headgear and more - this is a great starter for descriptive writing.  Before the children start their writing they can use the recorder in the ActivBoard to tell their story.

Thinkers Keys flipchart, created by Rachel, is a fun flipchart filled with activities based on the thinker's keys (Tony Ryan). Great for before school thinking and when children have finished their work. Suitable for whole class and small groups. These activities promote thinking, creativity and imagination. - this can also be download from Promethean Planet.

Question Keys - put up a picture - get kids to write five questions with that picture as the answer.

There are heaps of ready made Brainteasers on Promethean Planet readymade.  Search for Catherine Iler as she has many available to download on the website.

Rachel talked about enhancing ceativity
- use the screen recorder
- put on wiki and YouTube
- recording strategies and assessment of children's thinking
She recommended Bevan James from St Marys Rotorua as a great example of the above.

Science on Promethean Planet:

• National Geographic
• Horrible Science - have to pay for (Scholastic) but well worth it, all pages have notes, cost $2NZ.

Magic Reveal really is something I must use more!!!  Click here to go to a You Tube tutorial on how to use and create Magic Reveal.

There are resources specifically for New Zealand teachers for the ActivBoard at http://activboardnz.com/education/for-teachers/resource-packs/ including Te Reo Maori and Samoan language resources from ActivBoardNZ to download.  Other useful resources include Hectors World for cyber safety, Life Education resources, road safety, water safety, food safety, Sun Smart and Hiwi the Kiwi's fishing sustainability message - all destinctively Kiwi!!

Rachel demonstrated how to add music to the page.  She used a body and attached the music to different body parts, so then you can "pull out" the name of a body part and kids have to move it to it.

Top Tip:  Go to the 'most downloaded' on Promethean Planet and see who else you can stalk and get new resources weekly.

Using PhotoStory 3 in class

I was introduced to PhotoStory 3 when I did the GDITE (Graduate Diploma of Information Technology in Education) at Wintec in 2007-2008.  It is a really simple programme that uses photos, text, audio, music and some wizz bang effects to, well, create a story with photos.  It tells you step by step how to create a PhotoStory.  To download it for free, simply google PhotoStory 3.

I've used PhotoStory 3 several times now.  In 2009 the school I taught at was having a new technology block built.  So I dutifully took photos of classrooms being moved to make way and the progress of the building for my class to use and record the progress of the project.

Last year, my class did a scientific exploration of kitchen chemistry.  Again I took photos of them concocting various things with exciting ingredients like baking soda, lemon juice, vinegar and food colouring.  I asked them to show what they had learned from doing the experiements.

Deary me, I was too broad.

What I got back was a series of PhotoStories that sounded like a scientist had gone completely mad with the features in PhotoStory in overdrive, and no scientific learning being explained.

During the Rugby World Cup I asked them again to use PhotoStory.  I asked them to take photos of each other doing those weird and wonderful actions that explain their decisions on the rugby field.  Some of them managed to do the actions for gridiron/American football rather than rugby, but hey, it happens.  This was a bit simpler for them to achieve.  It didn't require mad scientist voices either.

This year, during our Anzac Day unit, I decided to try this again.

I sent my students in groups of three off into the Multi-Purpose Room to cook Anzac Biscuits.  I asked the to take turns to take photos of the process.  One group did forget, and had to improvise.

The first group finished had tried to do the whole mad scientist thing like last year.  I pointed out that the task told them to:  "Make Anzac biscuits.  Take photos of each stage of making Anzac biscuits.  Use the photos to make a PhotoStory 3 presentation to show the step by step process of making Anzac biscuits."

Naturally I sent them back to redo it.  They had to take out the mad scientist and put into it how Anzac Biscuits are made, you know, all that stuff about how much of each ingredient, whether or not to sift or stir or whatever.

So my message here people is:  Be specific about what you want to achieve when using PhotoStory 3.  Yes, it is great that they are using all the bells and whistles in the program, but they also need to be effectively getting a message across to the audience, even if that audience is their teacher.

In my Anzac Biscuit PhotoStory, I would expect that the audience would be able to use the PhotoStory to make the biscuits without having the recipe in front of them.  In the kitchen chemistry PhotoStory I would expect that you would be explaining how the reaction occurs between two or more ingredients so I could evaluate your understanding.

So, as you can see, it is a great tool, but as a teacher, I have to be very clear about what I want my students to achieve and communicate with this tool.