Testing the Absorbency of Paper Towels and the Sham-wowTM! -- Part Three

Part Three – Using the Smarter Science Framework to Perform, Record, Analyze and Interpret the Inquiry

(Posting 18)

Okay! So my grade nine / ten Essentials Grade Nine Science class has spent two days preparing to conduct an experiment to determine which type of towel is the most absorbent. The three types they have to choose from are brown paper towels like those found in school washrooms, white paper towels common in most North American kitchens and the Sham-wow^TM a commercial product advertised for its absorbency. I spent the first day getting them engaged in the concept of the inquiry that we would be performing (see blog posting 16). Then we spent the next day using the Smarter Science elementary framework to plan our controlled test of the three paper towels (see blog posting 17).

You may be thinking that this is way too much time to invest in a science experiment, there is curriculum to cover, facts to memorize, textbooks to read and tests to write! I would like to counter any of these arguments with the reply that I have been using the Smarter Science framework in my classroom for some time now with the result that the students have an enduring understanding of the process of science and they have become able to think critically about a wide variety of concepts, not limited to science. As a veteran teacher I have often struggled with the question “But how do I get them to think?” I have read a plethora of books, taken too many courses, sat through endless hours of professional development and tried countless strategies to develop students’ metacognitive skills but it was not until I started using the Smarter Science framework in my classroom that I felt that the students were actually developing their metacognition.

The posters we used are available in pdf format on the Smarter Science website. Because my students have weak literacy skills I chose to complete one master set for this experiment which I had prominently displayed in my classroom. As the students entered my classroom today I met them at the classroom door and gave them a photocopy of the bottom half of page 4 as they entered with the instructions that the only other item they needed today was a pencil.

Together we reviewed the process we had gone through yesterday wherein we had ended by determining the question we wanted to explore. The question is: “If we change the type of towel what will happen to how long it takes to clean up (time)?”

The students were instructed to complete the handout I had given them of step five individually. This included changing the words “We” to “I”. Every single student completed the first half with: “I predict that the Sham-wow^TM will be the best.”

They struggled a lot more with the second sentence starter, “I think this will happen because . . .” They wanted me to tell them what to write. Again I had to convince them that it was what they think, not what I think, as long as that is what they think then their answers will be right. There was a huge tendency to copy from the few risk takers who took the chance to fill in their thoughts so I had to ask them to turn their papers over when they were done. An additional problem I encountered was that due to the weak literacy level in the class some students asked me how to spell particular words, which is a practice I encourage with these learners. However, what happened today was when others heard what words were being requested they used those words in their answers. Thinking is a real challenge but one I now feel competent to deal with!

Eventually everyone had something written down. Some examples of their answers included, “I think this will happen because . . .

· the Sham-wow^TM is made of fabric.”

· it is better.”

· material is good.”

· it is expensive.”

We referred back to poster3, step 3(b) on which we had written our three unchanged variables: blotting or rubbing, amount of water spilled, and amount of time spent cleaning up. Collaboratively we decided on the values to give each of these variables. They were:

· Blotting only, no rubbing

· Amount of water spilled = 25 mL

· Size of towel = 10 cm x 10 cm

I wrote these values right onto the poster for the students to refer to.

Almost ready to perform and record! We decided the instruments we would use would be the 25 mL graduated cylinder for the amount of water spilled. Consequently, we had some “just in time” teaching while I demonstrated how to use the graduated cylinders. We also decided to use pencils and rulers to measure out 10 cm x 10 cm squares of each towel and scissors to cut

Next we designed our observation table onto which we would record our data. We drew them right on the back of the small handout the students had used to make their predictions.

Type of towel	Volume of spill	Size of towel	Time to clean up
Brown paper	25 mL	10 cm x 10 cm
White paper	25 mL	10 cm x 10 cm
Sham-wowTM	25 mL	10 cm x 10 cm

I did not worry about the fact that they were only going to do one trial with each type of towel. We can only cover so much ground at once! We can get into multiple trials and reproducibility another time.

Measuring out a 10 cm x 10 cm square onto the towels was very challenging for some of these students, as was cutting the squares out. After helping all of them cut one square out I showed them how to use it as a template for the next towel rather than measuring a new square out. In the future I may prepare some cardboard templates for the students who struggle with their fine motor skills. It would also be an opportunity to have a peer helper or buddy come into the classroom to help measure and cut the squares.

The students were happy to be measuring out their squares and using the graduated cylinders. I was pleased when one asked me if they should put their goggles on. I told them it was okay because we were only using water so they would be safe but they were disappointed so I got the goggles out and made them optional for this lab. About half of the students put them on, I have observed time and again that students like to be “real” scientists and do what a “real’ scientist would do.

The students were even more delighted that they were allowed to “spill” water onto the lab counter. As they performed the lab they required verbal cues to remind them to “blot not rub” and “don’t start blotting until you look at the clock”. In order to facilitate timing I had the students work in pairs, but each person performed the entire lab. This allowed them to focus on either timing or blotting at one time instead of both thereby ensuring that data got collected and recorded.

By the time everyone had performed the inquiry, recorded their data and cleaned up I had them all pass in their little handout for marking. There was much more learning than what was recorded on that paper but it allowed me, as a classroom teacher, to have some evidence of the students’ accomplishments so I could record something in my mark book.

There are so many extensions that could be done with this inquiry we could probably do nothing but this for the entire semester. Here are some questions that the students had while doing the inquiry:

· I wonder if the Sham-wow^TM works as well after it has been washed.

· I wonder if the blue Sham-wow^TM works as well as the orange sham-wows.

· I wonder how the no-name Sham-wow^TM from the Dollar Store compares.

· I wonder why they don’t put Sham-wow^TM in all the washrooms.

· I wonder why they don’t make diapers out of the Sham-wow^TM?

· I wonder how the Sham-wow^TM compares to an ordinary towel.

· I wonder if I could use the Sham-wow^TM to dry my dog.

It is these questions that provide evidence to me that the students are engaging their metacognitive skills, and that is the power of Smarter Science!

Testing the Absorbency of Paper Towels and the Sham-wowTM!

Part Two – Using the Smarter Science Framework to Design and Conduct the Inquiry

(Posting 17)

If you read my previous blog posting you know that I spent a considerable amount of time laying the ground work for today’s inquiry. The students I teach in this class are teenagers yet they all have high needs and a multitude of exceptionalities which results in them working well below grade level.

Today, when the students came to class I greeted them at the door, as usual. On my desk I had the same three items as yesterday – a roll of brown paper towels, a roll of white paper towels and an orange Sham-wow^TM , however, there was no spilled water on the front counter. Taped up on the front board I had the set of four Smarter Science posters that are recommended for use at the elementary level.

We quickly recapped yesterday’s lesson wherein we had observed spilled water and discussed which type of towel would clean it up the best.

“What happened to the spill, Miss?”

“Which towel did you use to clean it up?”

Imagine the students surprise when I told them that I did not clean it up! Instead I left it there when I went home yesterday and when I came back today it was gone.

“The custodian must have cleaned it up” quickly became the class consensus. I asked if anyone had any other ideas of where it might have gone. Sadly, they didn’t so it was up to me to suggest that it might have evaporated. This led to a lengthy discussion about evaporation. The example that most students seemed to be able to relate to was puddles disappearing when the sun comes out. Although they all came around to accepting that evaporation is real there remained a great deal of uncertainty about how long the process would take.

“Let‘s talk about the observations we made today and yesterday” I said as I drew the students’ attention to the first poster at the front of the room. Step One, collectively we came up with three observations:

• Miss spilled water yesterday.
• Miss has towels that could clean up the spill.
• Where did the spilled water go?

“Looking at these three observations, what does it make you wonder?” (Still step one of the Smarter Science framework.)

• Was it really water?
• Why did she spill it?
• How much water did she spill?
• Who cleaned it up?
• Which towel works better?

Although the students had deviated from the intention of the “WONDER” box I did not correct them since they were completely engaged, on track and offering excellent questions. (The “wonder” box is intended to be used for the students to speculate as to the answers they posed in the “observe” box.)

Moving on to step 2(a) of the Smarter Science framework, on the second poster, we worked together as a class to brainstorm the answer to “What could we measure or observe about the spilled water?” We recorded our ideas on pink sticky notes.

• How much water was spilled? (initial volume)
• How long does it take to clean up? (time)
• How much water gets soaked up by the towels? (final volume)
• How big is each type of towel? (size)

These questions lead us directly to step 2(b): “What could we change or vary about the object or the event that may affect what we could measure or observe?” These items were listed on yellow sticky notes.

· Amount of time spent cleaning up

· Blotting or rubbing with the towel

· Size of the towel

· Type of towel

· Amount of water spilled

All of the ideas listed above came directly from the students. A different group of students may come up with a completely different list. That does not mean one list is better than the other. As long as they stay on task any list is correct. The students need to receive continuous positive verbal feedback and reassurance that there is no such thing as a stupid idea in science class. In fact, some of the best discoveries in science have come from what others considered “stupid ideas”. One of my own personal favourites that I use to describe this phenomenon is that of Galileo Galilei, but I digress.

Moving onto poster three, step 3(a) we had to decide what we would change. This choice was limited by the yellow sticky notes we had placed in the box for step 2(b). It was decided that our changed variable would be the type of towel used. This decision was prompted by reminding the students that what we wanted to test, today, was which type of towel was the most absorbent. Consequently, the yellow sticky note reading “type of towel” was placed on the “changed variable box” of step 3 (a).

Our next decision was how we would measure of observe the result. This process was starting to go over the heads of some of the students plus their attention was starting to lag but when I told them that this was really a multiple choice question and all they had to do was choose one of the pink sticky notes from step 2(a) for us to put there they perked back up. The choices we had previously recorded on pick sticky notes in step 2(a) were:

• How much water was spilled? (initial volume)
• How long does it take to clean up? (time)
• How much water gets soaked up by the towels? (final volume)
• How big is each type of towel? (size)

We voted to determine that the quantity we would measure would be time and we would use the second hand on the classroom clock to measure it. So the pink sticky note that read “How long does it take to clean up? (Time)” was moved to the appropriate box on poster three.

Step 3(b) on poster three asks “What will we not change?” so the remaining yellow sticky notes were moved here.

Moving on to poster four all we had to do was move the pink and yellow sticky note from poster three, step 3 (a) onto step 4. Therefore it read, “If we change the type of towel what will happen to how long it takes to clean up (time)?”

Eureka! We have successfully initiated and planned a controlled experiment! But . . .we are out of time.

The students are told that tomorrow they will start by making their predictions and then we will be able to get on to the actual experiment!

“Yay! Another day with no work! We love science!”

See the next blog posting : Testing the Absorbency of Paper Towels and the Sham-wow^TM!

Part Three – Using the Smarter Science Framework to Perform, Record, Analyze and Interpret the Inquiry (Posting 18)

Testing the Absorbency of Paper Towels and the Sham-wowTM!

Part One – Laying the Ground Work (ENGAGE)

(Posting 16)

During the new semester one of my teaching assignments is a split class of grade 9 and 10 Essentials Science (SNC1L and SNC2L), also known as Locally Developed Science. Teaching this class is always a wonderful experience because the students have not only the highest needs of all our learners but also have the greatest desire to learn about science through inquiries. Many of them can only read and write at a primary grade level and compensate for this lack of literacy skill be being exceptional listeners, and highly visual and tactile learners.

The Ministry of Education does have a formal curriculum for these courses as well as course profiles but the emphasis is more on the big ideas and less on the details which leaves the teacher free to follow the needs and interests of the learners, to take into account the equipment available and also to integrate any special skills that the teacher may have into the course.

The inquiry that I am going to describe in this blog fits nicely into both the grade nine unit on Science in Daily Life and the grade ten unit on Science In the Media.

In order to get the students engaged I spent an entire 75 minute period setting up the scenario for them. Prior their entry into the class room I cleared off my desk except for three items: a roll of brown from home and a bright orange Sham-Wow ^TM. (For those of you unfamiliar with the Sham-Wow ^TM it is a type of thick cleaning cloth that is marketed extensively in Canada through a series of hokey television ads, one of the many claims of the Sham-Wow ^TM is its super-absorbency.)

Instead of standing at my door to greet the students as they entered, which is my normal practice, I stood by my desk and greeted them as they entered. This immediately drew their attention to the three items on my desk; they were especially attracted to the bright orange colour of the Sham-Wow ^TM.

“What’s this, Miss?”

“Is this for a lab, Miss?”

“Did you spill something, Miss?” were some of the questions posed by the more verbally inclined of the group. Some of them touched the various towels while others just looked on.

After everyone had gotten organized and sat down I picked up my tea cup from its usual position on my desk and accidently spilled all the water out of it onto the front counter. The students thought this was the funniest thing they had ever seen! They laughed and laughed!

Keeping up the pretext that I was a goof who had just spilled water I posed the question, “What should I use to clean this up?” Everyone had a suggestion and some of the students even got up from their seats to clean the mess up for me. I reassured them that I could handle it, thank you, but I left the puddle of water right where it was. Instead I seized the opportunity that had now opened itself up when everyone started shouting out their suggestions about how I could clean up the spill. Getting the students talking about the situation means that they were now thinking, the ever elusive metacognitive skills had become engaged!

I announced that we were going to take a vote on which one of the three types of towels I should use to wipe up the puddle but before we voted each student needed to jot down on a sticky note which type of towel they were going to vote for. As usual, the students liked using sticky notes because they knew they would be tossed into the recycling box at the end of class and therefore they were not threatened if their spelling was incorrect, their writing was messy and they could even doodle (in fact it is encouraged). After everyone had something down on their sticky note they were instructed to find a partner who wrote something different then they did. This allowed some built in, controlled movement of the students who need to get up and move around during class anyway. Once the partners were found the next step was to give each partner 30 seconds to try to get other one to change their mind about which cloth should be used. (This strategy is called Think – pair – share.) Everyone was then given a second sticky note, of a different colour than the first, and told to write down their final choice, for the vote.

The second sticky note became the ballot for voting। I drew a chart on the board and each student came to the front and placed their sticky note into the appropriate column on the chart. This allowed for some more controlled movement within the class and also provided us with a nice visual we could use to tally up the votes.

Brown paper towels	White paper towels	Sham-Wow TM

At this point of the class, the spill still wasn’t cleaned up, I asked if anyone would like to explain to the class how they had voted and why. Responses included:

“Those brown paper towels are no good. They never get my hands properly dry when I use them in the washrooms.” (Good example of using prior knowledge.)

“The white one is best, I saw it advertised on TV, and it is the quicker picker upper.” (Good example of making inference.)

“My dad uses the Sham-Wow ^TM when he washes the car and it works really well.” (Also prior knowledge.)

“I saw an ad for the Sham-Wow ^TM on the internet and it can absorb more than its own weight in water so it is best.” (Inference? Recall? Prior knowledge?)

“I voted based on the colour.” (visual preference)

“I voted that way because my partner told me to.” (Peer pressure.)

“I don’t know.” (Honest!)

As you can see, a wide variety of responses, but they led me exactly where I wanted to go next, which was into advertising claims. The class agreed that no one had ever seen any advertisements for the rolls of brown paper towels and even hypothesized that they were probably used in all the schools because they are cheap and no good! Most had seen ads on TV for a variety of white paper towels although there was dissention regarding which brand name went with which paper towel. Many could recall seeing ads where entire rolls of paper towels were unrolled to compare how long the actual roll was when measured against other brands. This in turn, led to a discussion about whether the length of the roll had anything to do with the absorbency of the paper towels.

I showed the students some ads for paper towels that I had downloaded from youtube and we discussed them. Here is an example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en&v=UDeDNidI74Q&gl=US

Watching and discussing these ads was a perfect segue into discussing the Sham-Wow ^TM. After watching this ad once we watched it again while pausing it to discuss several things that were of note. Here is a link to the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJEKqI1e714

Things that we discussed from the video clip included:

• The claim that it can absorb 20x its weight of water.
• Not all rubbing was done the same way when spills were being mopped up.
• It looks like fabric and can be cut like fabric.
• It can be washed and reused (unlike disposable paper towels).
• It was invented by Germans.

By now it was only a few minutes until the bell and I had spent the whole period modeling in order for the students to have a good understanding of the inquiry that would now have to wait. I told the students that tomorrow we were going to design and conduct an experiment to determine which of the three paper towels was better at cleaning up spills. The spilled water was still on the counter!

“YAY! Another class with no work! We love this course.”

Next blog posting: Testing the Absorbency of Paper Towels and the Sham-wow^TM!

Part Two – The Inquiry (Posting 17)