Ripper's Chatter

Lunar Egg Challenge…Final Drop- Part III

February 11th, 2013 · No Comments · Labs, NASA, Project, School Events, STEM

The final day of the project finally came and the whole school knew we were doing our egg drop. We had a lot of visitors the day of the drop. Each class would drop their landers, roll their rovers down a ramp, while measuring the distance the rover traveled.

I think I forgot to mention in previous entries, part of the student’s problem was to build a rover that would carry an egg safely down a ramp. The distance the rover would travel would add points to their score. We were scoring the projects by the rubric I posted in the last entry. This included whether the egg broke or cracked points would be deducted if this happened.

The drop went well and we had one group do a great job on their rover going over 170 cm in distance. As for the eggs, It was split down the middle, some groups had their eggs crack or break. However, there were a good many that survived the drop. Overall, the students did a good job on their designs and had fun doing it.

As with all projects, Ms. Melcher and I sat down to talk about the components we would change or hopefully improve upon. Part of the process includes giving the students a formative assessment to find out what they did learn from the project. We agreed this might be something to do or actually have students complete step 8 in the packet. Step 8 in the engineering design packet has students creating presentations about their designs. This could be an option for another part of the grade for the project. Students wouldn’t have to present, but would create this part as a mini report. Just a couple of ideas. We did agree that we would prefer smaller groups, large groups didn’t allow for everyone to be involved in the process. Otherwise most of the project went well. We have already started collecting martials for next year.

Tags:NASA STEM Engineering

Lunar Challenge…the Build- Part Two

February 10th, 2013 · No Comments · Labs, NASA, NASA explorers school, Project, STEM, Teacher Ideas

Okay here we go…students began to build their landers and rovers after brainstorming and sketching their ideas. After identifying the criteria and constraints, students went to step 3 and brainstormed possible solutions. Step 4 is where students began to design and sketch their projects. Once students selected their design, they then could build. Some interesting sketches came out of this part of the project. Before they could get materials to build Ms. Melcher and I had to check their packets. No stamp, no materials. Step 5 was to build the model and in step 6 they were to test it. One of the problems I saw in this process was students had a tendency to skip step 6, this ended up hurting them in the end. We had to remind them to do this before proceeding to the final drop.

During the build period we also continued to engage students with information on Moon exploration. We video conferenced with DLN (Digital Learning Network) and JPL in California. This was a great opportunity for us to use a great educational tool offered by NASA. Scheduling was easy and they were really great in fitting conferences to our class times. We did this for three days one class period at time. During that time over 150 students participated in the conferences.

The presenter for JPL was Lyle Tavernier, and he did an awesome job. He gave students a brief lesson on Moon exploration. This included future missions such the Orion capsule and SLS systems. Once he shared the background information on the moon and exploration, he then answered questions. Students used this time to asked questions about their designs, Lyle was patient with the students and a big help with their projects. Some of them took his advice to heart and incorporated some of his ideas in their designs.

Once students built their designs they tested them in class or were suppose to, some try to skip this step. At this point we hadn’t given out the the eggs, students were still trying to keep their landers from breaking apart. If they followed the design packet they tested and adjusted their designs. Eventually they were ready for their final drop. We did skip step 8 which was a presentation of their final designs. I think we ran out of time for this step, maybe next year.

The building part of the project we guided the students through their designs, but they took full responsibility of the design and building components. To help teachers understand the engineering design process, NASA has videos on their BEST website discussing this process. They are geared more towards elementary and middle school, but high school teachers can get a basic foundation of the process for their project.

Next Blog the Final Drop…..

Tags:

Lunar Egg Challenge- Pre-Build Part One

February 9th, 2013 · No Comments · Honeywell, Labs, NASA, NASA explorers school, Project, School Events, Space Camp

“The Engineering Design Process is a series of steps engineers use to guide them in problem
solving. Engineers must ask a question, imagine a solution, plan a design, create that model,
experiment and test that model, then take time to improve the original – all steps that are crucial
to mission success at NASA. What makes this guide different from others is: (1) there are no
specific instructions or “recipes” for building the items; and (2) there are no given drawings. The
emphasis is for students to understand that engineers must “imagine and plan” before they begin
to build and experiment.” taken from NASA Best Guide.

“Drop an egg from a second story window without breaking it”

Crazy is the word students used when given this challenge. We modeled the lesson using NASA explorers lesson, “NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION: LUNAR NAUTICS” which is located on the NES website and a lesson I obtained from Honeywell Educators Space Camp. Collaborating with Physics teacher Angie Melcher, we combined physic and earth science students into groups. This was done randomly, we figured for the first time this might be a good idea. After getting the students settled into their groups we prepared them for the activity. Around 200 students took part in this challenge!

This is when we introduced the Engineering Design Packet we obtained form NASA eClips website. Using the design process we informed students what their goal was and the parameters they would have to follow. Build a lander and rover, the lander had to protect the rover which carried an egg or as we say “egg-o-naut” . We would drop the lander, with the rover inside, from a second story window.

Student painted Canvas, physics student Jason did a great job on our drop zone canvas.

Students were given a list of materials before they started (see below). They were allowed 100 total credits for both the lander and rover. The original lesson called for 100 each, but we thought that might be a bit too much and we wanted to challenge our students a bit more. Teachers signed off on any items purchased by the groups.

We purchased all materials prior to the introducing the project and this also gave us a chance to change any materials. For example, wheels became a popular item among the students, we gave them a couple of options. We purchased some K-Cup tops something different from the original materials. Another item we included that was not listed in the original project sheet, were bottle caps. We included all types, students preferred the the caps from PowerAde or Gatorade bottles, they became the favorites for wheels. Oh and one thing, no parachutes! Yep they didn’t like that, but we were landing on the Moon and not Mars. All the items were purchased from Amazon, for decent prices. Side note, make sure you have enough cardboard tubes, they like this material for the rover body, we ran out.

(Taken from Honeywell Educators Space Camp, AMY BARTLETT, NASA MESSENGER FELLOW, RAYMOND S. KELLIS H.S., MARE GILMORE, M.Ed., LIED CHILDREN’S MUSEUM)

Grading and rubric was included with all the materials handed out to students. The engineering design packet had its own rubric, but we decided to to include our own rubric. Ms. Melcher, did all of the work on this part, she included some of the original categories. Students were given the rubric before they started the build, so they knew how we were assessing them.

This whole project represented the future standards in science. We definitely could incorporate the Next Generation Standards into this project. The engineering packet guided the students throughout the process. It was originally geared to middle school, but we adjusted it for high school students. One of the main changes we made was to make the project more of a PBL lesson, we guided the students but did not become too involved. Pretty much we allowed them to think outside the box. It also went much smoother with two teachers involved due to the number of students participating in the activity. We have already started thinking about next year and what we are going to change. Special thanks to Angie Melcher for all her work.

Next Blog will continue with the actual building part and DLN..……

Tags:Lunar Egg Challenge NASA Explorers School Honeywell Educators Space Camp

NASA Mars Workshop

January 27th, 2013 · 1 Comment · Labs, NASA, NASA explorers school, Project, Teacher Workshop

Today, Saturday January 26th, started a bit late due to weather. The Mars Workshop being hosted at NC Museum of Natural Sciences was suppose to start at 10 am. Bad weather delayed the workshop until 11 am.

Upon arrival we were given tons of information and materials for day. Brandon Hargis, from NASA Aerospace Education Services Project (AESP) began the presentation introducing various educational resources that could be found on the NASA Educator website. Amazing how much material is available to teachers on the NASA website. I already have experience with NES (NASA explorers school) and NASA Educator area. I recently went to this site for some resources for our current Lunar Challenge project (will be discussed in a future blog entry). After introducing some really great resources Brandon handed the workshop over to Dr. David Way, an Engineer from NASA Langley who worked on the Mars Curiosity mission. Dr. Way was great, he answered all our questions. Dr. Way was presenting at Astronomy Day at NC Museum of Natural Science. This event was taking place at the same time as the workshop. Once his presentation was finished Brandon gave us our assignment. The rest of the workshop was building and experiencing an activity that corresponded to STEM and the Next Generation Standards. Brandon had taken an activity from NASA Best and changed it to suit Mars. He did give us the Marsbound! Mission to the Red Planet lesson (grades 6-12). We went over the first part the lesson which was a card game. Using the 5 E’s students are asked to design a mission to Mars. Different Cards represented different systems such as power, launch, computer etc. Using a design mat students would design the actual spacecraft according to certain specifications listed on the cards. This looks like a good lesson for the future. The great thing about it is it really does spell out its objectives and learning outcomes throughout the lesson.

We then started a lesson that was taken from NASA Best: Build a Lunar Satellite. For example, we had to design a Mars rover within certain specifications and develop a landing mechanism. By using the Engineering design principles, we started with a problem and worked our way to a solution. Great lesson and something I will use eventually in class. The best part of the workshop is that it gave us a chance to do a lesson and find out the pitfalls some of our students could come across. Of course different concepts were present throughout the activity.

All the groups had some great ideas. We had set some goals at the beginning of the workshop. They included learning more about integrating engineering into the classroom and learning about various materials to bring back to the classroom to implement this goal. We obtained those goals and more. This was a great workshop and I would recommend it to everyone. The NC Museum of Natural Sciences, have some great educational programs and I would do another one if offered at the museum. There is another NASA STEM conference being offered in March at the 5th Annual NASA Educators Workshop for STEM in Charlotte. Definitely an idea for a future PD.

Tags:NASA Curiosity Mars STEM NC Museum of Natural Sciences

Update Project 365

January 16th, 2013 · No Comments · Teacher Ideas

Catching up on the project 365 that I’m involved in. It is really going great!

16/365 weather station, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is our weather station and web cam. Notice the winter storm warning for Thursday night, kids are hoping…
Feel free to use the weather station at any time http://goo.gl/znN9T

Tree 12/365, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This was a crystal growing Christmas tree I obtained from the dollar store. Didn’t think it would work but it did! Pretty cool.

Quote 11/365, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Project 365 and My favorite quote!

Classroom 10/3651, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Here is part of my classroom. I will admit I am lucky to have computers in my room. Our rocket launcher sits in the back of the room near our weather station.

Hallway 9/365, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is our new entrance and new wing. Just opened this year. The wall has pictures hanging on it that light up at night. The new wing hosts new art, band and gym areas.
The posters are outside my classroom, obtained them from NASA.

Best Part of my day at school by rippie77

Best Part of my day at school, a photo by rippie77 on Flickr.

9/365
Via Flickr:
This taken today because I forgot about it yesterday. However this was a great moment when my students understood the lab activity we were doing. Love those learning moments.

Tags:Photos·Project 365

5th day of 365

January 5th, 2013 · No Comments · Project

Well here is the 5th day of 365, Weekend Tradition. http://flic.kr/p/dHTUpB

via WeekendTradition | Flickr – Photo Sharing!.

Tags:365 Project

Project 365

January 5th, 2013 · No Comments · Project, Teacher Ideas

Can’t help it but I have to keep thanking Krissy Venosdale (http://venspired.com/) for setting this up. Since I’m still on break it has been really fun figuring out what to post for each day’s photo. If you want to know about the project take a look at the #edugood page. Today was your favorite shoe day, I posted my 4th entry below:

Not very original but it told the story; jogging and relaxing. Just collaborating with other teachers has been one of the perks of this whole project. I’ve noticed more teachers have joined since the first day. The first day was New Year, New Goal, some of the pictures shared were awesome and thoughtful. My new goal is to be a better listener. Sometimes I forget that a major part of teaching is listening. As this project has progressed I started to think how could you use this in the classroom. Maybe have students do a different science topic or concept each day for a month. If that becomes bit too much how about doing a weekly photo, similar to a current events, have students present their photos every Friday. Topics could be narrowed down to current units being completed in class, examples include astronomy or meteorology for me. I think meteorology would work well especially with topics such as clouds or temperature. For middle and elementary school, drawings might be the way to go instead of photos. National Science Standards do state that students should “be thinking critically and logically about relationships between evidence and explanations, constructing and analyzing alternative explanations, and communicating scientific arguments” This project could integrate these standards and others. I would have students explain (generate) a description of their photos using concepts presented in class. As for Common Core Standards, I think this project would address:

“Translate quantitative or technical information
expressed in words in a text into visual form
(e.g., a table or chart) and translate information
expressed visually or mathematically (e.g., in an
equation) into words” Common Core

So I’m thinking this idea might just be a good one. Open-mouthed smile

As the Project 365 continues I hope to get more ideas to use in the classroom. Next up is Weekend Tradition and the Skies…um wonder what I’m going to post.

Tags:365 Project Venspired

New Project

November 27th, 2012 · No Comments · Energy Sources, Labs, NASA, NASA explorers school, Project

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give” Winston Churchill

As we head into break I’ve come to the conclusion that I would love to implement tons of teaching strategies and assessments, good intentions but too little time. I’ve had to change things around due to some lessons I’m implementing and testing for GARVT. Also I just have been real busy implementing my new Forensics course. That’s why there haven’t been any entries for the past couple of weeks.

But I’m going to try and catch up in one entry…well try anyway. Before doing our Alternative Energy Project (See below) we did a NASA lesson on Mars. We completed the Mars: Dirty Ice or Icy Dirt lab on the Phoenix Mars Website. I used this as a inquiry lab, students were given various materials and asked to develop an experiment to compare unsaturated, saturated, and supersaturated soils. Students used computations to find the water weight in %. In the final activity students were asked to compare their results to Mars and Earth. Student’s did a good job but next time I would like to have them whiteboard their experiments and as a class come up with a procedure. Overall the activity did work and I think I will use it next year. I found this activity through NES (NASA Explorers School).

We completed our Alternative energy project. Student’s were given a rubric and asked to follow certain guidelines when completing the project. They were suppose to use video as the presentation medium. Many of the students did a PowerPoint then exported it as a .wmv files.

Students either worked in Windows Movie Maker or narrated their PowerPoint’s before exporting.

When using Windows Movie Maker, students used a flip cam to record their presentation. To enhance their presentation they used white boards for information. Some students caught on very quickly and had a good time presenting. Other students had a tough time figuring out some of the logistics of the presentation.

Overall the information gathered was great and they actually presented well. All of the information they used came from the The NEED Secondary Alternative energy resource. The only change I would make to the whole project would be to give the students a bit more time on the video presentation. I would show the students how they could use WeVideo, a cloud based video editing program. It links with the Google Drive and can be accessed through your Google account. During the project I also introduced Google Docs to the students, I had them sign up for an account and collaborate with their group members through Google Docs. I’ve already decided I need to use this tool a bit more and plan on doing some surveys and other documents through Google.

Next entry will talk about Forensics…..

Tags:NASA NEED Alternative Energy Source PowerPoint

NC Catholic Conference…. Greensboro

October 7th, 2012 · No Comments · Discovery, Honeywell, NASA, NASA explorers school, Space Camp, STEM, Web 2.0 Tool

After talking Angie Melcher into doing the conference with me I came to realize there was a lot of information we needed to get together. Well we did and what a team we made. I think we were well received and had tons of information for those that attended.

We started off by introducing the different definitions of Web 2.0 and then expanded on it by introducing the different tools and their emphasis on collaboration. Two areas of background framework we introduced that talk about the integration of technology was TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) and the 21st Century Learning Skills . Both address the need of technology to enhance the student’s skills for the future.

Once we established a foundation for the our subject, we then began to introduce the different tools we use in our classes. One of my recent Web 2.0 tools was Wordle and Tagxedo. Students were given an assignment to find information on a scientist and use Wordle or Tagxedo to present the information. I intend to create a collage with all the wordles they create. Angie talked about her video lab reports, and how she flipped some of her classroom. We discussed our science department video channel that we had at Youtube (CGHS Science Channel). After going through our list we talked about some resources teachers could use to find ideas about Web 2.0, one is a really great diagram we got from one of the Discovery Education webinars about Blooms Taxonomy:

After we finished our first part, I then talked about Discovery Education and the October VirtCon. Most of the teachers had subscriptions to the resource but there were some who didn’t know about it. So I introduced them to the resource. I then took the time out to discuss NASA explorer schools and the lessons I had already done in class. This led me to Honeywell Educators. Of course I had to wear my flight suit for the talk.

I think we did well and that is what some of colleagues told us, so it was a success. I’m now trying to talk Angie into taking the act on the road.

Tags:Web 2.0 Discovery Honeywell Flipping Classroom

A month later… and never busier!

September 29th, 2012 · No Comments · Discovery, Labs, NASA, NASA explorers school, STEM

Its like the title states, a month later and I’m totally busy. Wouldn’t have it any other way though. Ton’s of fun these last couple of weeks. They actually make me appreciate my job even more. Teaching has become a love….no a passion lately. The summer has just infused so much energy in my lessons. Sounds corny I know, but I’m just having tons of fun in the classroom and my administration has just been awesome with support. And so I will try to explain the last few weeks as briefly as possible.

Our first activity was a Density lab, instead of the usual mass and volume given , I had student’s figure out the density of different liquids and then make a density column. The original experiment was a demonstration which I obtained from Discovery Education. But instead of making it a demonstration I changed it to a type of inquiry lab. I had student’s plan out how they would figure out the density of each liquid. After that they were to create a density column. Below is an example of one their density columns:

Students then whiteboarded their results and explained what they did to figure out the densities. So I gave them a problem and they designed an experiment to solve the problem. They did a good job and I’ve already planed other activities to do with this format. Our department goal for this year is to incorporate more inquiry and PBL labs. So this was good start to the year for PBL’s.

After starting the year with team building we moved forward in our curriculum. The next activity was a GPS activity. I integrated some Discovery information (thank you Kyle Schutt) and some NASA explorer schools information together in a lesson. I placed various geocaches in locations around the school grounds. Inside the plastic containers I had QR codes, clues to their questions on their lab sheets. When scanned by the phone, the QR codes were located a webpage on the internet. Every clue pointed to a satellite page and it’s mission. Below is an example of the QR code:

This code is for the Calipso satellite, students had to summarize the satellites mission. The QR codes were made with Google Chrome. The student’s loved it and after a formative assessment I found out that they understood GPS a little better. Many were frustrated at first because they couldn’t figure out how to use their GPS instruments. We did use Labquest 2 from Veriner and Garmin instruments. Students also used their iphone but they were having a difficult time with the iphones and the GPS on it. Overall student’s preferred the Labquest 2, it was the easiest to use and they actually would track the movements of students. When students were asked if they understood GPS better, the overall answer was yes. With the materials from my summer experience and some information from a Discovery workshop, I created a lesson that student’s were excited to complete and could actually learn about satellites. The activity did a good job of integrating technology, student’s learnt how to use GPS instruments. The tough part about this activity was the clues. You need to make sure they are secure. I think instead of having student’s take a clue I would have them bring something to me and I would hand them the clue. Overall this activity could really be expanded and my student’s want to do others. So….we will probably do that.

In forensics we just completed our hair and fiber unit. Student’s used various hairs; people, rodents, dogs and cats to compare their medullas and cuticles. What a fantastic time, they used compound microscopes to compare their crime scene evidence to the various hairs supplied by the teacher.

Students’ did the same thing for fibers. They distinguished fibers and cloths with different weave patterns. These classes did a really good job on their drawings for their lab reports. The fun part of this was gathering the samples, thanks to all the faculty who helped me out! LOL.

The above pictures are fibers (left is nylon rope and right is cotton fiber) we looked at under compound microscopes. Our next chapter is fingerprints. The fibers were obtained from Ward’s Science suppliers. Our next chapter is fingerprints can’t wait for them to test their crime scene evidence. We will be doing super glue fuming, which should be fun. The class is going well I think, I’m going fast due to it being only a semester. But I’m making it mostly hands on. At the end we will do our big CSI with the drama department. Keep checking back on our progress through course.

Look for the next entry and our team appearance at the Catholic Conference in NC.

Tags:GPS Discovery NASA NES QR Codes

D. Ripollone is a STAR member of the Discovery Educator Network