never mind the optics

In my previous post, I spoke about the topical science opportunities that my S2 class had explored since completing their course.  Today, we were really pleased to receive an email from the Head of Volcanology at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh:

To: Thurso High
Subject: fao Sinclair McKenzie Grimsvotn ash

Dear Mr McKenzie and students,

Thank you very much indeed for collecting and sending tape samples to BGS and Edinburgh University. We really appreciate the effort you all went to and in fact we’ve been delighted by the response across the UK.

I attach a preliminary report of our findings which I hope you find interesting. If you’d like to discuss any aspects of it or ask questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

A full analysis of all samples will take several more weeks so we’ll be in touch again then with the overall results.

Thank you very much for your time and I hope you’ll help us again next time!

Sue Loughlin

Dr S. C. Loughlin

Head of Volcanology

British Geological Survey

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It’s great when you are freed from the curriculum straitjacket and allowed to explore issues that have captured the interest of pupils outwith the classroom.  At my school, we’ve traditionally had a window to do just that with S2 classes from March until June, when they move on to S3 and a new, externally assessed treadmill.

This year has been a little different.  We’re using the time to trial some new Curriculum for Excellence topics ahead of the new S2 starting them in June. Based around surfing, my class have investigated waves, board design and properties of surfboard materials.

Having some knowledge about waves, they were keen to find out more about the Japanese tsunami in the days after it struck.  Then, with news of problems at the Fukushima reactor complex, we had a few lessons on nuclear physics and performed some background radiation measurements for Drew Burrett’s crowd sourced map of background radiation following the detection of Iodine-131 in Scotland.

We’ve finished looking at the physics of surfing and, just as we were about to discuss possible topics to take us to the end of S2, there was a new volcanic eruption in Iceland and a request from the British Geological Survey to help with a survey of ash distribution.

There is no doubt that ash has fallen on Thurso, just look at the bonnet of my car.

We set up the ash collectors following the BGS instructions.  Three books were positioned around the school; one in each of the quads and another by the roof of the old science greenhouse.

The ash collectors are lengths of upside-down sticky tape.  We used weights from my classroom to ensure the ring binders did not flip over during the collection period.  At the end of each monitoring period, the tape is taken back to the classroom and sent away to the BGS for analysis.  S2 are adding their new Glow Mail addresses to each sample so the BGS can return a copy of the results.

The BGS site also contains a short questionnaire to gauge the current distribution of ash around the UK.  As the map shows, there seems to have been a more noticeable fall of ash over Scotland and Northern England.

I think it’s so important for pupils to have these opportunities to explore scientific stories that appear in the news.  Not only is it highly motivational for pupils to have this say in what they learn, it also promotes the usefulness of scientific literacy in everyday life.  Recent stories in the media, such as the call to ban wireless networks and mobile phones in schools, are typical of the challenges we face when promoting an evidence based approach to doing and using science in society.

By coincidence, the Association for Science Education recently produced a book called Science Newswise 2 to help teachers use news stories effectively in lessons.

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I started a new topic with both S3 Standard Grade classes this week.

I introduced the idea of representing an electronic system by a block diagram and used the interactive mobile phones on the Sony Ericsson site to provide examples.  My link takes you to the simulator for the SE W995 (shown below) but you can change the phone model using the links on the left of the screen.

I stuck to keyed models, rather than smart phones, since it is easier to explain the use of a switches under a keypad than touch sensitive screens.

The Sony Ericsson phone simulators work well on a SMARTBoard, provided you have taken time to orient the board beforehand – I use the 12-point wide setting.

Pupils worked in groups of three to select a phone operation; making a call, sending a text message, listening to the radio or watching a video and identified the input, process and output devices.  These were arranged on three Show Me boards and the function was demonstrated to the class using the SE phone simulator on the SMARTBoard.

We discussed the energy changes taking place in each example and it was good to see pupils making links to the Telecommunications topic we studied at the beginning of the course.

I’ve just watched the latest Periodic Videos film where Prof. Martyn Poliakoff explains, in simplified terms, what went on when Canadian scientists “tricked” helium into behaving like hydrogen in a reaction.

The story has been out for a few weeks now, you can read reports of it here or here.

I’m just about to cover the short fundamental forces & particle physics topics with my Advanced Higher Physics class and I’ll show this to them, even if I am already worried about the questions it may raise.

In my previous post, I mentioned the prevailing risk-averse culture in science education.  I’m not afraid to share that I have some questions of my own about this simplified video.

• Why is the muon closer to the nucleus than the remaining electron?  I know that muons are significantly heavier than electrons, mostly thanks to Rabi‘s quote “A heavy electron. Who ordered that?”  The muon has the same charge as the electron, so I guess it’s not simply an electrostatic reason.  Is it due to equating the electrostatic and centripetal forces on the muon or is there more to it?
• Should we even be thinking of the muon and electron as particles?
• Muons have a short half life of around 2 microseconds.  Half life is in the muon timeframe and dilated according to Special Relativity.  This is for free muons though.  What happens to an electrostatically-bound muon? Does this make a difference?  I’m only asking because there is a difference between free and bound neutrons.

These questions flag up my insecurity about particle physics.  This is one area I will need to get my head round ahead of the new Higher Physics, whenever it is launched.

Last month, David Noble invited me to participate in an online discussion on Science Education n Scotland. Also on the panel were Nick Hood and Drew Burrett, both physics teachers, and Fearghal Kelly, a biology teacher seconded to East Lothian Council as Curriculum for Excellence Development Officer.

During the conversation, we touched upon;

• assessment in CfE
• the risk-averse culture that exists in the teaching of general science
• do we teach science by presenting a series of facts?
• use of ICT in the science classroom
• support opportunities available from higher education and other organisations

The event was streamed lived and subsequently posted to the EDUTalk posterous site.  I can’t get to the EDUTalk site from my school due to filtering, so I’ve uploaded the audio file to this site.  Click on the player below to listen.  Apologies for the variable audio quality.

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I read something Shawn Cornally’s blog about Star Wars.  Then I noticed that Rhett Allain had written a follow-up to Shawn’s post.  I love Star Wars and, like Rhett, there are some quotes that make their way into lessons.  My favourite is stolen from Yoda:

Do or do not, There is no try.

Although any child, regardless of their given name, might find themselves on the end of the prompt

Use the force, Luke!

when looking <cough> at a problem concerning Newton’s laws.

I have a pair of Star Wars visual aids in my classroom.  The first is a huge Darth Vader poster I made using The Rasterbator site a few years back.  If your school’s web filtering software blocks that site due to it’s naughty-ish name, you can do the same thing over at blockposters.

Vader is made from 20 sheets of A4 paper sellotaped together at the back and covered with a generous layer of hairspray to fix the toner.  His role is to remind pupils that the F in F=ma stands for the unbalanced force.

The second Star Wars item is the T-shirt I recently stuck to the wall above my SMARTBoard.  Colleagues think it’s weird to have a T-shirt up there instead of a poster – they may be right but does that matter?

I bought it from a US T-shirt site that had a sale on just after Christmas.  It’s been on the wall for a month now but the comments have continued.

I know what that means!

When can we do that?

What sort of forces will we do in Standard Grade?

The appeal of Star Wars isn’t limited to mechanics-based topics.  It’s recently had a mention in an electricity lesson.  I’m doing parallel circuits with both S3 classes at the moment.  They’ve just finished resistance in parallel where we practised using

and they know which one of these is my favourite resistor.  Here is a clue.

Finally, what’s not to like in this “making of” the Passat advert.

Over the past 18 months, I’ve been involved off-and-on with the Scottish end of a Science in Society project called S-TEAM, looking at inquiry-based science teaching.

As a member of the reference group, I’ve given my perspective as a classroom teacher and some of my classroom experiences of open-ended investigation with S1/S2 pupils have been included in articles on the nature of an inquiry-based approach to science in the classroom.

A shortened version of our first article has just been published in the February newsletter of the International Council of Associations for Science Education (ICASE).  The article is based on work I did with a S2 class in 2008.

I blogged about the project at the time.  You can download a pdf of the newsletter using the link at the end of this post, our article is on pages 6-8.

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I’ve been working through a short topic on acids and alkalis with my S2 class. In previous years, I’ve introduced the idea of the pH scale as a way of measuring the strength or an acid or alkali and then gone on to determine the pH of different substances.

I changed it a little this year.  We took time out to test a range of household items (diet coke, lemon juice, liquid soap, toothpaste, washing-up liquid, non-bio detergent, vinegar, shampoo, hand cream and milk) with universal indicator before I had even mentioned pH to the class.

The group task seemed to be engaging.  I heard discussions about the significance of the different colours on the paper test strips.  One group organised their dishes containing the samples according to their state: solid, liquid or “goo” (toothpaste & hand cream), while others rearranged them to follow the order of colours in the testing chart (red to purple).

image courtesy of Edward Stevens

Each group photographed their final arrangement and then we set about cleaning all the dirty glassware but we didn’t get round to capturing any of this activity in jotters as the period bell had crept up on us.

Next day, the jotters came out and photos were shared on the projector. Ideas about the significance of colour in the test strips were discussed and we wrote about the pH scale, sketching the range of colours and giving examples of familiar chemicals having various pH values.

This wasn’t the usual sequence of events for a pair of lessons, so I asked the pupils what they thought about the way our two lessons had played out.  I pretty much expected them to say that they preferred practical work to be spread out.  So I was surprised when almost everyone liked it better when a whole lesson of practical was followed it up with a non-practical lesson to speak about their experiment and write it up in their jotter.

Their reasoning was that they could focus on the experiment better if they were not up and down from their seat all the time, or writing something in their jotter at the end and then rushing to put equipment away before the bell.

I think I share these pupils’ dislike for being jostled around like that.  I can recall one particularly unsettling twilight inset session that felt like suped-up speed dating round the school hall to share ideas on the latest topic.  No time to gather thoughts, process information or choose your next words. Some pupils have said lessons involving cooperative learning strategies are like this.  Are they?

The next week, we worked to the practical period followed by discussion/reporting period.  Thanks to the home economics department, we were able to chop up red cabbage and fresh beetroot to make out own free, if slightly smelly, pH indicators.

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When’s the last time you cooked beetroot over a Bunsen burner?

It’s been a while since I posted anything on this site.  Much of my spare time was taken up with the National Mod coming to town.

I thought I would get back in the saddle with a post about a really positive CPD experience I had this weekend.  I drove down to Fortrose for a Saturday event organised by the ASE and IoP.  There was a good mix of workshops on offer and it was great to see so many primary staff joining the physics regulars for the day.

The first session I attended was run by Gregor from SSERC.  He brought a load of laptops with him and we had a chance to try using a useful piece of software called Tracker.  This is a great example of someone developing something for their students, finding out just how great it is and sharing it worldwide with others.  Tracker can do loads of things: analyse projectile motion, rotational motion and do spectral analysis. Best of all, it uses Java, so it works on Windows, OS X and linux.

The second session of the day began with a hands-on example of generating real data with Stuart Farmer, who handed on to Tania Johnston of the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh.  Tania shared the Observatory’s latest Deep Space resources for schools.  I worked through a group activity that bore a resemblance to galaxy battleships.

The idea is to work through a series of galaxy photographs and classify them into spiral, elliptical or unknown, then plot their location within the cluster on a quadrant.  By bringing the work of 4 groups together, the pattern of galaxy distribution, i.e. where do elliptical & spiral galaxies tend to appear in clusters, can be determined (I won’t spoil it for you).  There is another activity based on planet formation and exoplanets but I didn’t get an opportunity to try that one…

…the Play-Do looks fun though!  I really liked the observatory’s activities. They have have embedded a series of numeracy tasks into the packs so that they are not just about meeting space-oriented O&Es.

In the afternoon, I went to the Optoelectronics College workshop on illumination and communication with Martyn Crawshaw from Millburn Academy.  On completion of the workshop, I received a specially-designed kit worth £500 to help introduce S1/2 pupils at my to optoelectronics.

One of my AH Physics pupils has already spotted the LED board and plans to incorporate it into his investigation on determining Planck’s constant.

The last session of the day involved building a wet day alternative to the IoP rocket launcher.  Everyone was supplied with plastic piping and connectors to build a twin launcher to propel dragsters.  This would be a great activity for a corridor or school hall if the weather does not allow the use of the compressed air rocket launcher.

I’ve been on the receiving end of some horrific ASG CPD days recently – long, tedious sessions from which I have gained little.  I refer to days like that as herd CPD.  The science event on Saturday was a welcome change. The CPD available was relevant to me and was seriously hands-on.  This seems to agree with my learning style – sometimes the people who plan CPD events forget that teachers have learning styles too.

I wrote a post last term about my S2 class asking to base their lessons for the remainder of the year around the science of space.  Since returning from the Easter break, I’ve been working on incorporating numeracy and problem solving into these classes.

The first time they returned to my class, there were funny looks in my direction.  I rearranged the desks to create working groups and pointed towards the equipment they would use; very large measuring cylinders, some tubing and stopwatches.

The scenario I used was

You are an astronaut joining a 10-day mission on the space shuttle.  NASA needs to know how much air you will need during the trip.

There was confusion.  The responses included

• NASA know how much air to pack
• they give astronauts a personal oxygen cylinder
• that’s impossible
• how do you measure gas?

In other words: “Houston, we have a problem.”

If the lesson was going to go anywhere, I would need to give some hints.  I started by asking where we had obtained oxygen for earlier experiments. Some pupils remembered heating potassium permanganate, probably because of the near-explosive results we had achieved that day.  I had to remind them of the time we collected oxygen gas under water from a cylinder.  The measuring cylinders were really just large gas jars and so we could exhale into them through a tube.

We aimed for at least one person per group to measure the volume of air they could exhale in one breath.  Some pupils used stopwatches to count the number of breaths per minute and I could see that they were starting to identify a strategy to answer the challenge.  More importantly, they began to explain their understanding of the problem to the others in their group and, within minutes, I had someone from each group ask for a calculator.

By the end of the lesson, and it did take around 45 minutes, each member of the class has calculated an answer and compared it with someone else. We discussed their answers and I explained that we use problem-soving methods like this in the real world.  Someone said it was like a mobile phone contract, I probably showed my age when I compared it to working out an electricity or gas bill.

I wasn’t going to post about this lesson.  That changed when I watched Dan Meyer’s TEDxNYED session.

Dan’s analysis of our current approach to problem solving is spot on – I often remark to senior pupils that the question setter is leading them by the hand through a problem.  In this lesson, I avoided asking

How much air do you breath in

(i) one minute

(ii) an hour

(iii) a day?

and, in doing so, the class took ownership, rationalised and shared what they were doing.

Let’s make over the problem solving we do in science as well as maths.