Research Article Reflection

Curiosity+ Kindergarten= Future Scientists

       I picked the research article, Curiosity+ Kindergarten= Future Scientists by Jenny Sue Flannagan and Leisl Rockenbaugh because I thought that the first page was very colorful and intriguing. I also like that it involves a kindergarten lesson because I like teaching younger grades better than older ones. I believe that younger children are always so excited to learn new things and really look up to their teachers as role models. This made me really excited to read the article and se what I was going to learn.  In this article Flannagan and Rockenbaugh discuss a kindergarden inquiry lesson that involves each of the 5Es.

      I learned a lot of different methods and helpful tips after reading this article and will definitely use the lesson conducted in this article in my future classroom. This lesson involved exploring change, using their senses to make observations, safety rules, different charts, and writing. Before teaching a lesson you want students to be engaged and curious about what is going to be taught that day. Therefore, there should always be high positive energy in the classroom. However, teaching science can be very overwhelming because it involves different materials and/or chemicals that are harmful to students. if used incorrectly. It is very important to always go over the safety rules and make sure students understand the dangers of what can happen if something goes wrong and that they are always wearing safety equipment if needed. It is also very helpful if different graphic organizers are provided for students this way they can organize their thoughts, observations, and findings in a coherent easy way. Teachers can also incorporate different subjects into science. For example, allowing students to practice their reading and writing skills by reading magazines, articles and books for research and writing what they learned after the lesson/ experiment is completed. I also realized that teachers are just there to guide students into the right direction. The experiment conducted in this article shows how teachers help guide students into coming up with a conclusion instead of telling them exactly what to do and what will happen.

      The article starts off with students excited and eager to find out what they will be doing today. Once they found out they will be observing eggs they were very excited. As a class they came up with a list of things they already know about eggs. It is important to list everything you know about something before actually doing the experiment to make sure everyone is on the same page and so that students can always look back at it. After, they were split up into groups to work on their observation sheets.  Having students split into groups is good because students can practice their communication skills by working together and learning from one another. After students were engaged and had their prior thoughts together, it was time to explore. Students used different liquids such as vinegar and water to see what would happen to the egg if it was changed. Students compared and contrasted the differences between the raw egg then what happened to the egg after being changed. Students recorded their predictions, observations to keep track of what was happening. After exploring and conducting their experiment, students put what they did into words and wrote what they did to test out their predictions and find a result. After doing this lesson students were still curious and had more questions so they came up with new experiments to come up with answer to their questions or answer questions based on previous experiments and observations. While teaching the inquiry lesson the teacher observed students involvement, asked questions, and read through their charts and writings. Since the teachers can tell what their students learned by observing their work and behavior it was not necessary to have students take a test.

       Overall, I really enjoyed reading this article and think this lesson is a great idea. Children seemed to have a really fun time while learning and were always craving to learn more. This experiment allowed students to explore and discover on their own with guidance from the teacher. I think it is important to set a positive fun tone for teaching students science at a young age such as, kindergarten. These are children's first experiences with science and as a teacher you want your students to always have a positive attitude that will carry on with them for the rest of their lives.

Engaging Classrooms

Engaging Classroom

               Learning by creating science experiments are so much fun. I think doing an experiment as a class and to be kept in the classroom can be very beneficial. This would teach students different skills such as communication, time management, responsibility, and sensory etc. There are many different ways teachers can make this possible in a classroom such as having a pet or plant students need to take care of for weeks and observe the changes. During fieldwork we taught the class about different ecosystems and biomes. We wanted students to get the full understanding of what we were teaching so we thought what is better way to teach something than to create our own! This is exactly what we did; each table in the class created their own aquatic biomes!
               Students had a fun time learning and creating their biomes. Each table had a different amount of fish (male/female), plants, and snails. They recorded their observations each week and came to different conclusions. I think creating these biomes as a class really added to the lessons. Students were able to go back and relate what they were learning to their biomes. They also had to communicate as a group to create it and discuss what they think should be done. Students had to take a responsibility to take care of their biomes and to record the data. I would definitely add something like this to my lessons when I am a teacher.
               Like I said students had a great time learning and creating their own biomes, but there are other ways teaching science can be taken from the textbook to real life. I remember when I was in kindergarten or first grade we were learning about what plants need to survive. We were able to learn by seeing and doing it for ourselves. Each table had our own plants and each person at the table had their own job such as: measuring water, measuring how tall the plant was, or recording the data etc. Once we had our plants and jobs we were able to water the plant as much as we thought and place it in a spot in the classroom wherever we thought it would grow best. This helped me see that how we were taking care of the plant was affecting how the plant was growing.
                As a teacher I would incorporate as many projects and lessons into my class as possible. It is evident that students are more engaged in the learning experience and get to work on many different skills. Weather it be a plant, animals, or aquatic biome students will get to see what they are learning from a textbook and worksheets is affected in real life situations, which make students more intrigued with what they are learning.
                
           

Minty Fresh

Minty Fresh

       I conducted a science experiment that was presented at Bishop Dunn's 6th science fair. I was also a judge at the fair and had to interview several of the students experiments. This was such an interesting experience for me. I used to have to do a science experiment each year in elementary school, but once I got to intermediate school I did not have to do them any more. As a child I remember loving and spending so much time creating a science experiment. I thought it was so much fun. Having to come up with an experiment for this year made me excited since I haven't done them since I was younger.

        The process of coming up with an experiment requires a lot of thinking. The first step to make an experiment is to come up with a question you want to solve. My question was, "does mint really cool down things?" I came up with this because I eat mints every other minute and it made me wonder. Then, I came up with a hypothesis which is an educated guess. I thought that mints did not actually cool things down, but I performed an experiment to find out for sure. While designing an experiment you want to be sure that there is a control, independent variable, dependent variable, and all the materials needed. You also want to be sure to record observations and data. The way I conducted my experiment was getting two cups of water of the same temperature and filling them up to the same height. I would record the temperature of both cups. Then, I would place 5 Mentos mints in only one of the cups of water. I only put the mints in one glass of water every time so that the other glass of water, with no mints, would be used as the control. Everyone knows water cools down from just sitting out; therefore, to determine if the water was just cooling because of sitting out or the mints I needed to only put mints in one cup. I would put 5 mints in the glass and record the temperature of both glasses of water for 25 minutes every 5 minutes. After observing my data, I noticed that the cup of water with the mints in it was a lower temperature than the water without the mints every time.  I came to the conclusion that mints actually does cool things down. Even though my hypothesis was not supported I am happy I did this experiment because now I know the answer to my problem.

          While being a judge during the science fair I got to witness so many creative interesting experiments. Students seemed to have so much fun while creating their experiments and could not wait to share what they did with me. Everyone's board was so nicely decorated and creative and the experiments were very well planned and thought out. As a teacher I would definitely incorporate science experiments into my class, because students solve a problem and learn the way things work and are the way they are for themselves. They also learn a lot from everyone sharing their experiments with each other. I also think it is important to allow students to pick out their own experiments to conduct instead of assigning them one because students will pick out something that interest and excited them. This will make the process of doing the experiment more fun and engaging cause students to learn more than if they were doing an experiment that they were not interested in.

These are some of the experiments that I judged.