My 8th graders have been working their way through a chapter on plate tectonics. Over the summer I saw an idea on Pinterest that has students write tweets about the subject they're studying - just another way of getting students to summarize what they've learned. I decided last week to take a slightly different approach.. :) ...
So the day after we talked about Alfred Wegener's continental drift hypothesis, my students' bellwork as they entered the classroom was:
If Wegener had had access to Twitter, what do you think he might have tweeted? Pick up a Post-It note from one of the tables around the room and write down your idea. (For example, The continents are moving! #imnotcrazy)
I have a few 8th graders who it turns out are unfamiliar with Twitter, but most of them were pretty excited about this challenge! Here are a few of their responses:
The land used to all be one piece. #true#don'tjudgeme
Nobody believes my hypothesis. #yolo
The continents all fit together. #nojoke
The land is like a puzzle. You try to connect them! #puzzle#trythechallenge
I didn't have all of the students share with the whole class. Rather, I broke them up into small groups of 3-4 students, and asked them to pick their favorite tweet out of the group to share with the class. This is a great way to not take up the whole period, yet still be able to hear several students' ideas.
I can see myself working this in one or two more times during the year, but it's also something that I don't want to overuse at the risk of losing the excitement. (But I guess that's really true of any activity, right?!)
Rachel
Something I won't budge on in my science classroom is the issue of safety. My kids wear goggles more often than not, and we regularly discuss applicable safety rules before almost every lab that we do. My middle school students don't like to follow the "Always wear safety goggles" rule. (They'll mess up my hair! Are these leaving lines on my face? Do I look weird in these? yada, yada, yada...) After what happened today during 8th period, though, I don't think they'll question me on it anymore! ...
I set up a convection demonstration on one of the front lab tables. It was simple, and one that I've used twice a year for probably 6 years or so. I brought in a large 10x13 Pyrex baking dish from home, filled it with water, and then set it up so that one half of the dish was on a hot plate, and the other half was just resting on some books that I had stacked up. Once the water gets heated up enough, I can add red food coloring to the hot side, and blue coloring to the cooler side, and we can watch convection in action! However, as the water was heating up (the students were still in their seats working on making a foldable) suddenly the entire Pyrex baking dish EXPLODED! Literally... exploded.... !!!! We all jumped a mile, and I'm pretty sure a couple of the students screamed, simply because it took us all off guard! There was glass everywhere. I found glass in about a 7 foot radius around the hot plate! And I'm not talking big chunks of glass; I mean the itsy-bitsy tiny shards of glass that are nearly impossible to see.
I took the opportunity to explain to my students who witnessed the event why it is always so important to wear safety goggles when working with hot plates, even if it's just water in the beaker. I make them wear goggles because I want them to stay safe for the 40 minutes that they're with me every day!
I cannot tell you how thankful I am that no one was injured as we were not observing the demonstration at the time of the explosion. Aside from a good amount of time spent cleaning the tables and floor, and now needing to buy a new baking dish for home :), all is well.
Rachel
