“How long does it take to eat a Freezie?” -- A Math Inquiry: Blog #42

 Since being pumped up from the Science Teachers Association of Ontario’s (STAO) conference last week, where I was awarded the Secondary Schools Science Teacher of the Year 2011 by Youth Science Canada, I decided to do an inquiry based lesson with my math class today.

Some people may have hesitated before trying inquiry based learning with my math class for any number of reasons:

• Class room dynamics are unpredictable

• Each learner is on their own individualized learning plan (IEP)

• A wide range of mathematical ability
•  50% of the students are English Language Learners (ELL)
•  I’ve been out of the classroom for the past 3 teaching days
• This is a split level math class with KNN9A, MAT1L  and MAT2L students present

No worries! I am confident this will work! The inquiry we conducted was: “How long does it take to eat a Freezie?” For those of you unfamiliar with freezies they are basically frozen sugar water sealed inside a flexible plastic cylinder. Kids cut the top off the plastic, push up the frozen treat and enjoy them – especially in hot weather.

Together we brainstormed all the possible variables that needed to be taken into consideration prior to conducting our test. Here is the list that the students generated:

• Temperature -- Frozen or liquid

• How hungry are you?

• Eating techniques

• What size is the Freezie?

• Colour – it was determined via discussion that the students eat their favourite colour faster than others

• How many do you have? Class discussion revealed that if there was only one freezie a person would be more apt to take their time and enjoy it whereas they would gobble it up quickly if there were lots more available to them

• Would you be just eating, or eating while talking?

Since I was the holder of the freezies I was able to inform the students that the freezies were currently: 

•  Frozen

• Large

• Various colours

• They would each get one

• They would just eat and not talk

Next the students each thought about long it takes them to eat a Freezie and recorded their estimate.

Students were then instructed to pull out whatever technology they had in their pocket and find the timer or stop-watch feature on it. This integration of 21^st century technology lead to several teachable moments while the students were amazed that they even  had this capacity on their gadgets, downloaded appropriate apps from the internet and helped each other with this task. Those who had no technology moved to sit with those who did without me guiding them whatsoever.  The collaboration between the students was natural and free flowing! 

Students cut the tops off their freezies, started their timers and sat back to enjoy their investigation. As each student completed their eating task they recorded their time.

By the time all the data was collected and tabulated today’s class was over. Tomorrow we shall move on to analysis. The type of information the students will be expected to extract from the data will depend on what level they are working at. The types of questions that shall be posed range from: “Who ate their Freezie the fastest” to “calculate the mode of the time it took for the freezies to be eaten in our class.”

Because the students are working with data they generated themselves they have ownership of it. This makes the learning task engaging and authentic to them. Learning is fun!

Comparing Compostable (Starch based) Plastic to Tradition (Petroleum Based) Plastic: An Inquiry – Blog #41

Petroleum-based plastic (top) and Starch-based plastic (bottom) reaction with 5 drips of acid, for 5 minutes.

This week my grade nine applied science designed and performed an inquiry into the difference between compostable and petroleum-based plastic. This idea came to me while shopping at our local “dollar store” where I espied some packages of “compostable plastic bags”. These bags are specifically banned from our municipal composting program and I started to wonder if they really do break down and if so under what conditions. We are currently studying ecology in class so I bought a package of the compostable bags and took them into school. 

Strength test

When I showed the package to the students I had to take a step back because most of them did not know the word or the concept of composting.  So we spent an entire period learning about “compostable” and “ biogradable”. Those who did have prior knowledge shared what they knew, then YouTube and I filled in the blanks.

Now that the students understood that bags that are labeled as “compostable” are expected to break down in nature, I passed out a small piece (about 5 cm x 5 cm) of the two types of plastic to each of them. I encouraged them to feel the plastics and discuss with a partner various properties that could be compared between the two plastics. The students came up with an amazing list of nine properties! The properties they thought could be compared were:

1.      Colour

2.      Texture

3.      Odour

4.      Density

5.      Strength

6.      Stretchability (plasticity)

7.      Reaction in acid

8.      Reaction in water

9.      Flammability

This list of nine properties was the independent variables that we would study during our investigation.

Checking odour by wafting.

Prior to getting into the details of how to test for these properties the class brainstormed what variables would have to be controlled in order for the tests to be fair. They decided the controlled variables should be:

1.      Size of plastic sample

2.      Volume of water (where applicable)

3.      Volume of acid (where applicable)

4.      Temperature of the liquids used

5.      Time (where applicable)

Students were then instructed to work with a partner. Each pair of students was given one of the independent variables to consider. Together the pair of students designed a simple method for testing for their assigned property. They jotted down their design plans and submitted them to me. These pieces of paper became the procedure for the comparison tests. I told the students I would consolidate the procedures that they had designed for each of the nine properties into one list for them to use when performing the inquiry.

Prior to class the next day, I did prepare a table wherein the procedure for each test was listed together with space for the students to record their observations. I also assembled all the apparatus and materials the students could possibly require to complete the lab and placed them in a central location.

The students’ findings to date are that there was very little difference between these two types of plastics, when tested as described above. There remain two steps of my challenge to them:

1.      Tomorrow I will give them the opportunity to design and implement any further tests they wish to use to compare the plastics, ie. boil in acid, boil in water, subject to freezing, etc. It will be up to the students to come up with any test ideas and implement them.

The expression on this studnt's face is typical during a student designed inquiry!

2.      The next day they will have a choice of two activities; either write a letter to one of the plastic manufacturers describing their tests and the results or perform internet research to determine what other tests could have been performed that would have produced significantly different results for the two types of plastics. (ie. microbial activity, extended time, high temperatures)

Due to the high number of English Second Language (ESL) students in my class I am going to give the students the option of working either alone or to pair up in partners of English speakers with ESL students. This written product will be the final evaluation piece for this inquiry.

I would love to hear your ideas for other tests we could do on these two types of plastics, considering the restraints of a typical high school science lab. Please leave your comments and suggestions in the box below.

Conducting the Tomatosphere Project with the Smarter Science Framework – Posting 26

Now that our day length is increasing, bulbs are emerging and robins returning I am eager to start gardening. Since the ground won’t be warm enough to plant for at least another month I did the next best thing and had my class plant the tomato seeds which I had ordered from the Tomatosphere Project. This year however, I combined the Tomatosphere Project with the Smarter Science Framework to enable the students to design their own controlled scientific experiment. The fact that they are going to be sharing their data with the Canadian space Agency adds an extra layer of excitement to this rich, authentic learning task!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Tomatosphere Project I encourage you to view their comprehensive website. Briefly, schools can enrol to be part of a blind test. They are sent two sets of genetically identical seeds – one of the sets has been exposed to a simulated space environment at the University of Guelph, the other set has not. Students are asked to plant the two sets of seeds and track their germination rates. This data must be submitted online before the teacher is informed of which set of seeds was exposed to microgravity and which was not.
I like to start this experiment while we are studying the grade nine space unit. It leads to many questions, such as:
“What is microgravity?”
“How do seeds germinate?”
“Are tomatoes fruits or vegetables?”
“Why would they want to grow plants in microgravity?”
“What will people eat when we colonize Mars?”
All of these questions, and many more, come from the students and each one leads to a teachable moment.
The design of the Tomatosphere Project predetermines the dependent and independent variable for the students. Yet they still need to identify them. In addition, they determine what the control variables for the experiment are and decide on their values.
After distributing the Smarter Science starburst graphic to the students and describing the Tomatosphere Project to them the students were able to define “what would be observed” as the germination rate, as prescribed by the project. Therefore they wrote “germination rate” in the centre of the star burst as their independent variable. The dependent variable, which they filled in at the bottom of the page, was if the seeds had been exposed to microgravity, or not.
Together we brainstormed the control variables, each of which were written around the rays of the star burst. The list was:
• Size of pot
• Amount of soil
• Type of soil
• Location pot kept in
• Water
• Number of seeds
• Depth at which seeds are planted
Each student decided the value to give each of these variables then set up their experiment. This also led to a teachable moment on the important of labelling! Fortunately, I have a greenhouse attached to my classroom which allowed them all to choose their own spot in the greenhouse to place their two pots.
Once the seeds were planted the students then had to design their own observation tables. This was the most difficult task of the day. They really struggled with it. I kept telling them to make columns for whatever they were going to observe every day. Overall, this task was poorly done on the first day yet I managed to resist the urge to dictate the table headings to them.

The second day when the students came to class and checked their plants they were disappointed that no tomatoes had sprung up overnight. Nevertheless, I insisted that they still had to write down what they saw and what they did (if anything) to each pot. Now they could identify what was wrong with their observation tables. They asked me things like: “Where do I record how much water I gave them?” Eureka! Now I could tell them to add a column to their table! There were several aha! moments in class that day as the students realized what was wrong with their observation tables. Some even choose to redesign theirs from scratch.

For now we are watching, watering, recording and waiting. What will the two sets of tomato seeds do this year? I don’t know. It’s a blind test! But I will blog about it later when are results are in. In the meantime, I urge you to get involved!
For many of the students in my classroom it is the first time they have ever watched a seed germinate, thereby allowing me to provide them with some prior knowledge before we start our ecology unit. The students become very emotionally attached to their plants. They name them, they rush in to see them before class starts, they worry about them over the weekend, and they take them home and transplant them into their own gardens at the end of the experiment. There is a lot of friendly completion as they compare their plants to the others and a great deal of pride in the finished product. As the plants grow the students become more attuned to the importance of keeping everything equal between the two sets of plants and the importance of a controlled experiment becomes self-evident to each of them.

What types of seeds have you had success with in your classroom? Send me a tweet @EurekaTeacher