Blog – Page 5 – Just Simple Science

The Science Behind Buying a Car

This past summer it became apparent my car was not going to live forever! Little things had started going wrong and when it looked like some potential major repairs would be coming our way, I had to admit it was time to start looking.

I have only owned two cars in my life. My father helped with the purchase of the first one and for my second car, my wonderful husband took the lead. This time, I wanted to do the process-just to prove to myself I could do it.

Let me put this out there- I dislike the entire car buying process. While I know this is a generalization, I still have to say it. To me, car dealerships are full of sales people trying to make a lot of money off of you. I also feel they see a woman coming and the rules of the game change. Let me be clear-I want people to earn money for a day of work. I don’t want to shortchange anyone. But I also don’t want to feel like I am being taken to the cleaners.

I had planned on telling you the entire story of my car buying experience, but frankly reliving the process gives me a headache (except for the end). In short, let me tell you about a really great tool I used to get a good deal!

Go to Truecar.com . Plain and simple, you put in what you want, the price you want to pay, and the website searches for dealerships that have something in the ballpark. Keep in mind, once you put in your personal information, you will get contacted! Within 15 minutes, my phone, text, and email were blowing up! Everyone wanted to talk to me!

I picked the dealership that had the best price-Hall Chevy in Western Branch.

The manager and I traded several emails. Maybe it was the fact I was behind an email that I felt the power to just speak my mind. I simply told them here is what I want and the price I want to spend. Of course it did not hurt that my hubbie and a really good friend were cheering me on and reminding me I was the one spending the money. Make the dealership work within my price range!

In the end, I told the dealership, if you can do this price and the options I want, we have a deal. I thought for a moment I was going to have to walk away, and believe me I was prepared! In the end, the deal came through. I know for a fact the dealer still got his money out of me, but I also got the price I needed to have in order to make sure I was within my budget.

Use True Car.com my friends! It really does help you see what you can get for your money!

The people at Hall Chevrolet in Western Branch were really nice! Their showroom is open and inviting. I was thankful they were willing to make a deal with is science chick! So much so I agreed to do their fun and cute video story. Check out the fun video we did!

Uncategorized October 8, 2014

Science is Everywhere!

This morning as I had my coffee out on our back deck, I sat and just watched nature. I marvel at the simplicity and yet complexity of life. Everything we need to survive has been provided to us. Sometimes the answers are easy and sometimes we have to learn in order to solve our problems.

Here was a problem I had to solve this summer-what do you do when your garden blesses you with more cucumbers than you know what to do with? Well my friends, you learn really quick how to save them so they won’t rot (trust me-after all the weed pulling I was not going to lose them just because we could not eat them all)! Thanks to a fantastic teacher and a little science, we will be enjoying our harvest for months to come!

From the time I was little, I can remember my mother canning throughout the summer. From tomatoes, pickles, to beans, it always seemed weekends at the rivah (what we call our weekend place in Surry County, VA) were made for canning. Thankfully my mother answered the phone when I called to ask her to teach me to can. Of course I should have known I was going to love canning! How could I not love it when science is such a huge part of the process! Although her method of cucumber pickles takes a couple of days, the work is worth the outcome!

Here is what you need:

7 Pounds of cucumbers
2 Cups of pickling lime and 2 gallons of water
2 Quarts of vinegar
4 1/2 punds of sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Teaspoon Celery Seed
1 Teaspoon Whole Cloves
1 Teaspoon Mixed Pickling Spice

First thing to do is wash the cucumbers and then slice. Once you have them all sliced, put them into 2 gallons of water that has 2 cups of lime. For the next 24 hours, allow them to sit in this mixture. Be sure to stir occasionally as the lime will sink to the bottom.

Of course as we were doing this step I had to ask-why lime? What is the purpose? Lime helps to “crisp” the pickles by improving the firmness. It actually introduces calcium that reinforces the plants natural pectin.

In researching different ways to make pickles, many of the articles discussed not using lime. The reason why this recipe takes so long is this- you have to make sure you rinse all the lime away! If there is any lime left on the pickles when they go into the “brine” part of the process, it can actually reduce the pH of the overall pickling solution. This can allow bacteria to grow and we know what happens then!

So wash, wash, wash. After sitting in the lime/water mixture for 24 hours, you must wash them several times. I washed 3 different times (be sure to pour the water outside as lime down the sink is not a good thing). Then put them in another pan of fresh water for three hours!

After the three hour tour through fresh water, you then put the cucumbers in the mixture of vinegar, sugar, and spices and let it sit overnight.

The last step involves simmering and boiling the mixture for 40 minutes. Let them cool a little bit and begin the packing process. Grab a strainer with the tiniest mesh ever and a jar funnel. It was great and of course nostalgic to use the same strainer, jar opener, and pans my mother used! The strainer will collect the cloves and other large spices while allowing the wonderful juice to cover your pickles. Then pack, pack, pack those tiny morsels into the jars and seal!

What you end up with is a sweet, crisp pickle that reminds you of long summer days filled with sunshine and lots of love from family members!

Together We L.E.A.R.N.!

I had to laugh when a teacher who attended one of my sessions at the SDE conference told me she wanted to be more like me and only give directions once! Ha! If they only knew the truth!! I really wanted to only give directions for an activity once, but it never failed that a student always asked me to repeat the directions. But implementing one simple solution was earth shattering!

Are you ready for the just simple science solution? When I went over the directions, before moving on to the activity, I had one student in the class repeat back to me what I had just said. As the student repeated my directions, I ~~drew pictures~~ tried my best to draw pictures of what was said (my kids loved my lack of drawing ability!). Once finished, I had another student read the directions from what I created.

I have to say I was shocked how this one simply step changed the dynamic in my classroom. Suddenly students were using my chart to remind each other of the directions!

Why did this one simply step make such a difference? My simple charts provided students with a visual support. Visual supports are simply tools used to increase the understanding of language. They become the structure and support to help students understand the expectations of an activity or situation. Research has shown visual supports are very helpful for students with autism, but in all reality, they are good for all students. Roa and Gagie (2006) listed several reasons why these visual supports are useful to support learning and success within the inclusive classroom. According to Roa and Gagie’s research, visual supports

are part of all communication systems,
help to attract and hold a student’s attention,
enable students to focus on the task at hand while reducing anxiety, and
make abstract concepts more concrete for the student.

Not only did I use visual supports with directions, but I also created a visual support for class discussions. Those of you that are Common Core states know one of the goals of the standards found in the Language Arts Common Core deals with students engaging in discussions. If we think about discussions, how did we learn how to have one? We engaged in them! But students need to understand there are rules that apply to discussions! Thus the LEARN tool was created!

LEARN stands for:

Listen to each other.
Encourage each other.
Ask questions.
Respect each other.
No interrupting.

To understand a person’s point of view, we have to listen to them. Good discussions are also not always about agreeing with a person but are about encouraging each other. Teaching children to say things like, I respectfully disagree with you because… is a great life skill. I also want my students to ask lots of questions during discussions. This allows students to learn how to say things like: Are you saying…?

Discussions are also about respecting and allow everyone to have the opportunity to speak. Interrupting does nothing to encourage discussions. Our students need to learn we must treat others they way we would like to be treated. It never failed my classroom always had many more external processors(you know them-they start talking even before you finish the question) than internal processors (those students who need quiet think time). This made it really important to allow that precious think time for all.

Teaching students is not just about the content we want them to learn, but also the skills they need in order to be successful in life! If you are interested, you can find my LEARN poster here.

Rao, S. M., & Gagie, B. (2006). Learning through seeing and doing: Visual supports for children with autism. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 38(6), 26-33.

Ideas to help make teaching easier July 22, 2014

Teachers make a Difference!

Teachers make a difference! Nothing else needs to be said! Today I met some incredible teachers at the Staff Development for Educators Conference who are working hard to learn new ideas and new approaches to teaching. I think I learned more from them than they learned from me!

From making catapults, asking questions instead of telling, and even doing a whole lot of science, it was simply a great Just Simple Science kind of day!!

Thanks to all the teachers who selected to come and learn with me! I hope you all had as much fun as I did! Here are some great shots from today:

Uncategorized July 9, 2014

Twas the Night Before SDE!

Twas the night before the SDE presentation, and all through the suite,the boxes and bags were stuffed and ready for all the teachers Jenny Sue would meet. The activities and experiments had been chosen with care, ready for all the teachers who soon would be there!

I can’t wait to meet all the teachers at my sessions tomorrow! It was fun seeing all the teachers last night strolling around Vegas with their conference bags! Here is to hoping I am able to sleep tonight!

Ideas to help make teaching easier July 7, 2014

Scientists are Born in K!

Google the word STEM and just wait and see what you get! In a matter of .33 seconds, Google returned over 64,400,000 results. From STEM coalitions to STEM schools, STEM is everywhere these days.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Politicians and leaders in education keep talking about the role STEM education plays in keeping the U.S. a leader in the global marketplace. Everyone seems to have something to say regarding what teachers and schools need to do in order to improve the way our students learn these subjects. There also seems to be a huge push to impact students in high schools, but let me let you in on a secret people seem to be missing. Scientists, engineers, and mathematicians are born in Kindergarten!

Kindergarten. The place where children come to get inspired to learn how to read, write, collaborate with their new friends, learn about numbers, and learn to be scientists. Science in Kindergarten? Really? Can you do science with young students? Yes you can! In fact, they come with lots of ideas about how the world works. If we want to inspire more students to join the STEM career pipeline, that pipeline begins in Kindergarten.

Research conducted by Dr. Robert Tai from UVA has offered the first empirical evidence linking pre-secondary school career interest in science-related STEM careers from early science experiences in elementary school. Did you hear that my friends-experiences in elementary school! All of our talk about reforming high school is not where we need to be spending our energy. We need to engage our learners early. If we want to cultivate the next group of scientists, students have to believe they can do science as well as be a scientists. To do this, we need teachers who cultivate a love and interest for science.

The first session I am doing at the I Teach K conference is all about budding scientists in Kindergarten. I am excited to share simple activities and experiences teachers can use to get students curious and hooked into learning. These experiences are relatively cheap and easy to do. But it requires stepping out of our comfort zone and doing science differently. It calls for teachers to do science and not talk about science. It calls for teachers to connect reading about science and learning to read through science to experiences where students can build their understanding. Engaging the next generation of scientists begins with fostering curiosity.

Get ready guys-a whole new group of science teachers will be born in Vegas! If you are interested in the various lessons from this session, check them out here!

Why Science? July 6, 2014

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Box 1, 2, 3, and 4 ready to go! Don’t forget to mail them by June 25th. Do you think that box will hold together? What do I do it the boxes do not make it? Have I forgotten anything?

Questions, questions, question. But I think I am ready. Ready for what you ask? Well, Vegas baby! In two weeks, I will be heading out to Vegas to present 4 different sessions at the I Teach K National Conference. This conference brings Kindergarten teachers from around the world to learn and network over 4 days. I had put in my application to present just one session, but was excited to learn they wanted me to do 3 more! On Tuesday, July 8th, I will be presenting the following sessions (click on the word session to read the titles).

I have to say this has been different than any other workshop I have prepared for in the past. Thinking through the materials and how to get them all the way across the country is not an easy task. Having been to Vegas before, I did not want to take a chance of having to run around trying to find a Wal-mart or another store for materials! What does it take to plan hands-on sessions when you are not in your own neck of the woods? Well, it takes lots of planning and organization! Here is what I had to do to get ready:

1. Build the presentations beginning with the end in mind. This means planning backwards and identifying what I want teachers to know, understand, and be able to do when they leave my workshop. It also means planning different types of activities and changes of states to make sure that in the 75-minute session, teachers will never have a chance to get bored. Out of the 4 sessions, teachers will experience 17 different activities and will walk away with 4 different bags of materials to use in their own classrooms!

2. Make list and check it not twice, but three times maybe four. Once I finished designing the sessions, I made a list of materials, purchase said materials, and then redesigned several activities. Yep, after I had designed one session, I had to rework one of the activities because I could not think of how to ship some of the materials! It simply would have cost too much. Thank goodness I have a plethora of different activities I could pull from to use!

3. Box, box, box. Once I had all the materials, I then put each workshop into a separate box. Everything is in plastic storage bags and labeled with the title of activity and the session it corresponds to. Participant bags have all the necessary materials. Of course after I had packed all the boxes, sealed them and addressed them, I realized I forgot to put some stuff in. Thank goodness for a suitcase large enough that I can just check the rest!! Now to make sure I don’t pack more clothes than I need! So if you see me wearing the same pants more than once, forgive me-I had to pack light in order to make my sessions fun and engaging!

4. Call the hotel to double, triple check how to send it. I actually called the hotel three different times to 1) make sure I had the correct shipping address, 2) check on reservation and make sure the boxes would get to my room and 3) ask again about the shipping address to make sure the boxes would get there! Can you tell I am a little worried the boxes will not arrive? I am currently working on a contingency plan should this occur. I will accept all the prayers and positive thoughts I can get my friends! I do have to say, the staff at the Venetian have been fantastic and answered all of my insane questions!

5. Leave time to ship. I knew as I started packing the boxes I needed to find out how long it would take to ship to Las Vegas. Thankfully I did not wait until the last minute to determine this. Who knew it takes a week to ship materials out to Vegas! After almost a roll of packing tape, the boxes will be shipped out this Wednesday for arrival right before July 4th!! Boxes should be in my room when I arrive!! Now I just have to make sure I have a pair of scissors in order to perform surgery to open these boxes!!

And there you have it friends! Here is to hoping all my boxes arrive on time and in one piece! Be sure and come back later this week to read more about my adventures!

Ways to make science teaching easier June 23, 2014

What if…

What if. Two words with such power behind them. As a science teacher, I have used them forever. Maybe sometimes I even take them for granted. But what I love is when other teachers discover the power of these two words.

As I was surfing the web tonight, I came across this story. Take time to read it and get excited my teacher friends. Rich Lehrer is a science teacher who started using these two words to get his students doing authentic learning. He gave them a real problem and they worked collaboratively using technology to find a solution.

The power behind the two words is this: what if begins a question. Questions are the hallmark of inquiry. Inquiry is the search for meaning through our observations and experiences.

What if every teacher taught this way? What if we believed all kids could learn through an inquiry process? What if? To get students engaged in learning, what if has to become our rallying cry! Go Science!

inquiry June 13, 2014

My Brain Hurts!

For those of you that saw the title of this post and began to panic, there is nothing medically wrong with me or my brain! My brain hurts because I have been learning over the last week!

Have you ever been engaged in learning something new and right in the middle of that process or maybe at the very onset you found the very act of learning made your head hurt? When I was teaching, I used to tell my students it was my job to make their brains hurt. I knew that when they said their brains hurt, their brains had encountered something that made them think differently or challenged them to make connections. Of course some days were better brain learning days than others, but I wanted to keep stretching my students.

Guess what my friends, scientific evidence has uncovered why our brains hurt (see research study here and for a easier read-click here). Now don’t panic, if you read the study and suddenly are feeling the need to quit learning because it may lead to neurological problems, don’t sweat the small stuff! As both articles discussed, it seems this is a normal process for our brains unless there are other problems.

Learning is the act of acquiring new skills or modifing/ reinforcing existing knowledge or behaviors. The very act of being able to engage in learning is really what makes us unique. Although I am tired and my brain needs a serious vacation, I have been stretched!

The most powerful learning experience in the last week did not come from a book or a lecture, it came from simply interacting with a group of talented science teachers. As a participant in the Science Education Faculty Academy (SEFA), which is part of the VISTA (Virginia Initiative for Science Teaching and Achievement) grant, this academy brought 25 faculty members from across Virginia together. While all of us were different, we shared the same common element-we had a passion and desire to make science education more effective for our preservice teachers.

We discussed, debated, laughed, and just had fun learning from each other. For all of us, the week allowed us the opportunity to take a peek into another teacher’s classroom to see how teaching could be different.

This experience got me thinking. Do we give teachers enough time to reflect and discuss their practice with other teachers? Have you been in a professional learning experience where you were able to do this? What was it like for you?

I hope as the school year winds down you will engage in a learning opportunity that does indeed make your brain hurt! Go Science!

Ideas to help make teaching easier May 30, 2014

Going from Novice to Expert in 20 Minutes

Back in February, I had the opportunity to model a lesson at Bayside Elementary School. The teacher had been working with her students on sound and wanted them to experience inquiry. More specifically, she wanted to help them understand how to develop a testable question.

Questions are the heart of what a scientist does. Scientists are experts at asking rich questions and then designing experiments to find answers to their questions. If we want our students to think and work like scientists, then they need opportunities to do this same process in the classroom. But given the limited time, how can teachers engage students in the very same process used by scientists?

It begins with first allowing students to do something. What do I mean by do something? Well, let’s look at what 5th grade students did with craft sticks, pieces of a straw, and some rubber bands.

To begin the lesson, I simply told the students we were going to make a sound instrument with craft sticks and rubber bands! Of course they were immediately hooked. After making what I call a sound machine, students played their instruments. For 5 minutes, the room hummed with sound!

Next, all I did was ask this simply question-what could we change about the materials that might affect the sound we hear? Suddenly hands went up and soon, we had identified one thing we wanted to change-the location of the straws. This led to a great discussion on pitch.

All in 20 minutes!! Yes-20 minutes!! Here is the thing my friends, if you look at traditional textbook lessons, students always start with reading about the experiment and in most cases, the experiment gives them everything they need to do-it even states the question! In reality, not much critical thinking is required. If we want our students to become experts, we have to change the way we do things. Instead of beginning with throwing students into the lesson, start with having them make observations. Have them build their own sound machine and then ask questions about the object. It might take more time, but the payoff leads to critical thinking, higher student engagement, and the development of real scientist!

If you want some other great ideas to help students design their own experiments, check out these lessons: Pitch Perfect and Rolling Cars.

Ideas to help make teaching easier May 13, 2014