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Science Methods II - Week 14

  1.        What did you do in lab today? a.        In lab today we began by discussing our interviews with elders in our small groups. The next thing we did was look at amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere from the 1950s to today. We then looked at jars with one different colored bead per 1 million beads. This helped us get a context for what parts-per-million looked like. We talked about, and watched a video on why CO2 changes seasonally, but how there is still a clear rise globally. We then looked at a simulation of how different greenhouse gasses affect infrared and visible light particles. We also watched a video explaining how greenhouse gasses absorb the infrared light emitted by the earth and as more gasses remain, more light is trapped in the atmosphere, warming the earth. We then talked about how the surface temperature is increasing globally, and how the hottest 10 years in history have been in the last decade. ...
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Science Methods II - Week 13

  1.        What did you do in lab today? a.        In lab today we began by discussing what we wrote about “Before the Flood”. We talked about our big takeaways and what we thought. We then talked about our reading on coupled inquiry and discussed what we thought about it. We then continued talking about climate change and analyzed graphs to look at our understanding. 2.        What was the big question? a.        Our big question for this week is: “How do we navigate teaching climate change in a world where science is a topic of debate?” 3.        What did you learn in Thursday’s discussion? a.        In Thursday’s discussion I learned all about the acronym L.O.W.E.R Near Water, and what it means with respect to climate. I learned about how ocean currents and wind patterns help to circulate te...
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Science Methods II - Week 12

  1.        What did you do in lab today? a.        In lab today we started with a Kahoot reviewing our geology section for our upcoming quiz. We then moved onto talking about climate change and we specifically looked at precipitation changes in Iowa. We asked the question, “Is the Iowa State Bird (the Goldfinch) in danger/endangered?” We split our table groups into regions and made charts to measure the average increase in precipitation in our regions. We put all our results on the big white board and then talked about how global temperatures have increased on average. We then did our best to answer the question we asked earlier about the Goldfinch. We ended the day by breaking open some geodes. 2.        What was the big question? a.        The big question this week was: What can we do to make sure that environmental activism and climate change is taught ...
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Science Methods II - Week 11

    1.            What did you do in lab today? a.      In lab today we discussed a lot about erosion and weathering. I learned about how we can tell different types of weathering apart from each other, and I learned also learned about how rock cuts work. I expanded my knowledge upon how rocks create new layers as they age, and learned about how magma intrusions and faults change the landscape of the Earth. At the beginning of lab, we spent a long time looking at different types of sand under a microscope. I had no idea where the different types of sand were from, but with   my group I was able to match the sand to what type of weathering it underwent thanks to guidelines from my TA. We then spent time talking about layers of Earth and matching them up to their ages. I learned how fault lines create valleys and shift the layers down, I think that this can contribute to how our layers of rock move, a...
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Science Methods II - Week 10

    1.       What did you do in lab today?             In lab today we began by taking a formative assessment asking “what is a rock?” I took the assessment with my assumptions being that rock had to be made by nature and could not be metal. After the assessment I learned that a rock could be a metal ore, and could also be something that was carved from rock or stone. We then discussed activity mania and our homework from last week. We talked about how we need to make our science instruction rich in learning while also being hands on, not just science-adjacent activities. We then talked about how convection currents work and tectonic plates move. We also talked about the evidence we see in our daily lives, like volcanoes and earthquakes. The final piece of our lab was learning how different rocks are formed with an activity. I learned how sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks ar...
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Science Methods II - Week 9

1.       Convection cells video:  Convection Cells Video                       What did you do in lab today? a.         In lab we began by thinking about when, in geologic time, certain major events happened. We compared when the moon was created to when life first appeared as well as when humans and dinosaurs began to roam the earth. We then talked about how we think humans have been around forever, but how if the history of Earth was a road trip across the country that all of human history would only take up the last inch of the trip. We then split into our table groups and researched a section of Earth’s history and presented it. I learned that the history of Earth started very slowly, and in the last 500 million years big events have been happening significantly more frequently than the time before it. 2.       ...
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Science Methods II - Week 8

  1.        What did you do in lab today? a.        In lab we gave our presentations. We learned about the origins of the universe, galaxies, black holes, lifecycles of stars, origins of Earth, and exploration of space. We also discussed the Coriolis effect and how, because of the tilt of the earth, water will spin in a different direction depending on where you are on the equator. We learned about the Big Bang theory and how the universe was created from a single tiny particle expanding into everything. We discussed galaxies, and how they are giant spinning collections of trillions of stars that move all over the universe. We learned about how stars are created from space dust, and grow as they gather dust and particles until they supernova and explode creating black stars or black holes. We learned how Earth was created from space dust just like this. 2.          What was the big qu...
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