Over the next week or two we will be finishing up the trebuchets. The hard core group made some extra parts to help along some of the people who have gotten stalled.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
What is a compost furnace?
It is a way to use the heat from compost to heat our greenhouse. Most backyard compost piles are examples of cold composting. If the water, carbon nitrogen and oxygen are in the right balance a whole series of bacteria and microorganisms will grow and produce heat. Our test furnace is small so we will need to insulate it inorder for the heat to accumulate.
Click here to see the slideshow.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Finishing somethings. Starting others
Chris's homeroom and B's homeroom finished up their healthy place-mats today. Earlier we had looked at different ways that different cultures teach healthy eating habits. For insistence in an India educational video there was an emphasis on water that is missing in the US. In Japan we saw a recommendation to have foods of different colors. If you are talking about whole foods the requires fruits, vegetables, carbohydrates etc.
In a somewhat simplified way we also talked about benefits that we get from different foods, proteins to buid and repair our bodies, carbohydrates to provide energy etc.
We had talked about ways to represent portions and the different ways that this can be represented, pyramid, plate, cloud, even a map of the solar system. The students also included activities like exercise, sleep etc. in their own way.
Elaine and Susan's classes are also finishing up. Val's class may need another week.
In a somewhat simplified way we also talked about benefits that we get from different foods, proteins to buid and repair our bodies, carbohydrates to provide energy etc.
We had talked about ways to represent portions and the different ways that this can be represented, pyramid, plate, cloud, even a map of the solar system. The students also included activities like exercise, sleep etc. in their own way.
Elaine and Susan's classes are also finishing up. Val's class may need another week.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Cheese fail
We tried to make string cheese, which is basically mozzerella that has been pulled like taffy.
Ours was too crumbly.
I did some research. We may need to add a little CaCl2. Anyone work in a biochemical lab? I need a little Calcium Chloride.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Trebuchet Progress Report
We continue to build during science club on Monday, Wednesday and Friday during lunch. Anyone is welcome and several students have joined recently. They are all at different places in the process so there are a lot of opportunities to help each other.
Several SK families went to the Lake Orion pumpkin launch and brought back many ideas. One parent commented that there were not a lot of entries and some looked to have been built very last minute. He concluded the event was ripe for our domination next year!
Several SK families went to the Lake Orion pumpkin launch and brought back many ideas. One parent commented that there were not a lot of entries and some looked to have been built very last minute. He concluded the event was ripe for our domination next year!
Monday, October 1, 2012
Word Cloud of Ideal Summers-Knoll Graduate
Monday, September 24, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Teacher Attitudes Double Take
So I'm thinking it was good to be reminded (see last post) that teacher attitudes can have a profound effect on students. Wait a minute. That was the point of the first half of the story the point of the second half of the story is that reminding teachers is not enough to change their attitudes!
The thing that works is changing behaviors that is what changes attitudes. So here is my idea. In the link there is a reference "To see if teachers' beliefs would be changed by giving them a new set of teaching behaviors, Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study."
I'm going to ask my support team to find that study. I want to see how they did their observations of teachers. I have already asked Chris and he has agreed to obverse me to look for evidence of beliefs that I might not even be aware of.
If you find that reference please post it in the comments.
The thing that works is changing behaviors that is what changes attitudes. So here is my idea. In the link there is a reference "To see if teachers' beliefs would be changed by giving them a new set of teaching behaviors, Pianta and his colleagues recently did a study."
I'm going to ask my support team to find that study. I want to see how they did their observations of teachers. I have already asked Chris and he has agreed to obverse me to look for evidence of beliefs that I might not even be aware of.
If you find that reference please post it in the comments.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Wow. I loved this story on NPR this morning. Here is the link to it. The idea is not new but worth being reminded of. So now how do I change my behavior?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
A brilliant insight from my students
So I was showing Chris' class a TED Talk by Sugata Mitra titled "The child-driven education." When we got to the quote by Arther C. Clark "Any Teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be." I asked them if they agreed. At first they said "no no!" Then some started saying "well maybe yes." They concluded that if the machine is as good or better then the teacher then yes maybe the teacher should be replaced.
Later in the video Mitra shows that groups of children left alone will teach themselves things that interest them. At that point I asked them if I should be replaced? Since children that are left alone will teach themselves should I be replaced? They are very sweet and many of them tried desperately to reassured me that they did not want a machine for a science teacher. My response was that I didn't want them to have a machine for a science teacher either but I wanted to know why it was that the children that Mitra studied were teaching themselves when there was no adult present.
I have thought about this for some time. They said that it was fear of embarrassment. I was immediately struck because that is exactly what, the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan's younger cousins told him. They liked him better on video because they could replay anything that they did not understand. I concluded that if they are to embarrassed to learn from me than I should be replaced by a machine that does not embarrass them. Sweet as they are they didn't like that idea at all. So we started a discussion about being embarrassed. They like the idea that I have been embarrassed. So I mustered up my courage and told them an embarrassing story about myself.
At the end of the video and discussion I asked them if they thought that they could do what the students in Mitra's studies had done and they eagerly accepted the challenge. I got them into groups around computers and showed they the site goorulearing.org. There is a good introduction here. With goorulearning.org and all the other resources on the internet I asked them if they could answer the following question. "What is the science of cheese making?" We will continue to work on this next week.
Later in the video Mitra shows that groups of children left alone will teach themselves things that interest them. At that point I asked them if I should be replaced? Since children that are left alone will teach themselves should I be replaced? They are very sweet and many of them tried desperately to reassured me that they did not want a machine for a science teacher. My response was that I didn't want them to have a machine for a science teacher either but I wanted to know why it was that the children that Mitra studied were teaching themselves when there was no adult present.
I have thought about this for some time. They said that it was fear of embarrassment. I was immediately struck because that is exactly what, the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan's younger cousins told him. They liked him better on video because they could replay anything that they did not understand. I concluded that if they are to embarrassed to learn from me than I should be replaced by a machine that does not embarrass them. Sweet as they are they didn't like that idea at all. So we started a discussion about being embarrassed. They like the idea that I have been embarrassed. So I mustered up my courage and told them an embarrassing story about myself.
At the end of the video and discussion I asked them if they thought that they could do what the students in Mitra's studies had done and they eagerly accepted the challenge. I got them into groups around computers and showed they the site goorulearing.org. There is a good introduction here. With goorulearning.org and all the other resources on the internet I asked them if they could answer the following question. "What is the science of cheese making?" We will continue to work on this next week.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
First Week
The first week we did hands on experiments in food science as part of the Farm to Table theme.
We started our discussions about food talking about what it is made of. I wanted to see what the students think about the contents of food so I knew what to talk about.
What the students said varied depending on their age but the one universally surprising thing was how strongly their lists seemed to be influenced by advertizing. Iron and Vitamin D were surprisingly high on the list.
I started to refine my question by asking what they thought made up most of the weight of the food that they eat. They are Summers-Knoll kids so of course they are clever and they mentioned water. True but not what I was looking for. Such are the perils of playing guess what the teacher wants. We did get lots of ideas and terms flowing.
I indicated that minerals, vitamins and micro-nutrients are important out of proportion to the amount of space and weight that they contribute and that there are three types of molecules that are critical to life that make up most of the non-water weight of food. The molecules of life, protein, fats(lipids) and carbohydrates. Enough talk, on to the hands on stuff!
The kindergarteners, and first and second graders took a first stab at three tests for food content. We tested for glucose (table sugar and a small carbohydrate) , carbohydrates in general and fats/oils. For glucose they used DiaStick test strips that turn from green to brown. For carbohydrates the students prepared the sample and the teachers or I dripped iodine onto it. Iodine changes from brown/red to dark purple) in the presence of carbohydrates. For fats and oils they smeared or smashed the food samples onto pieces brown paper grocery bags. Stains that don't dry indicate fats and oils.
For the kindergarteners I prepared all of the materials so that they only had to stir and dip. For the first and second graders I gave instructions and they had to follow, collect their materials and samples from the front of class follow the procedure and evaluate the results.
After a similar discussion with the third and fourth graders about content they split into groups and followed multistage directions (recipes) to separate the proteins from whole milk and soy milk.
Their were three groups one using vinegar to coagulate whole milk, one using rennet to coagulate whole milk and the third using Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) to coagulate soy milk. Vinegar made a cheese sort of like ricotta(not a really ricotta though). The rennet made something like mozzerella. If we have any cheese making experts in the community I would love to learn more. The reading I have done about cheese making chemistry has done little more than point out the depth of my ignorance.
For many of the students reading through the instructions and understanding them before they started was a challenge. This is an important skill because it uses one of the most amazing capabilities of the human brain, the ability to model and predict the future.
The oldest students covered the molecules of life, "what is in food?" discussion and continued on to address the topic of calories in much more detail. I had them break up into small groups and look up the definition of a calorie on the internet. (I give them one computer for 3 or 4 students. This was inspired by a great TED talk by Sugata Mitra called Child Driven Education. The experiment was in part the inspiration for the movie "Slum dog Millionaire."
They found that their is both a physical calorie and a dietary calorie or kcal. The definition of a dietary calorie the the amount of heat that is needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius, at one atmosphere. The high point was an attempt to measure the calories in a dorito chip. We put 100gm of water into a pop can and lit the dorito on fire under the can. By measuring the increase in the temperature of the water we were able to calculate a lower estimate of the amount of kcals in the dorito.
We started our discussions about food talking about what it is made of. I wanted to see what the students think about the contents of food so I knew what to talk about.
What the students said varied depending on their age but the one universally surprising thing was how strongly their lists seemed to be influenced by advertizing. Iron and Vitamin D were surprisingly high on the list.
I started to refine my question by asking what they thought made up most of the weight of the food that they eat. They are Summers-Knoll kids so of course they are clever and they mentioned water. True but not what I was looking for. Such are the perils of playing guess what the teacher wants. We did get lots of ideas and terms flowing.
I indicated that minerals, vitamins and micro-nutrients are important out of proportion to the amount of space and weight that they contribute and that there are three types of molecules that are critical to life that make up most of the non-water weight of food. The molecules of life, protein, fats(lipids) and carbohydrates. Enough talk, on to the hands on stuff!
The kindergarteners, and first and second graders took a first stab at three tests for food content. We tested for glucose (table sugar and a small carbohydrate) , carbohydrates in general and fats/oils. For glucose they used DiaStick test strips that turn from green to brown. For carbohydrates the students prepared the sample and the teachers or I dripped iodine onto it. Iodine changes from brown/red to dark purple) in the presence of carbohydrates. For fats and oils they smeared or smashed the food samples onto pieces brown paper grocery bags. Stains that don't dry indicate fats and oils.
For the kindergarteners I prepared all of the materials so that they only had to stir and dip. For the first and second graders I gave instructions and they had to follow, collect their materials and samples from the front of class follow the procedure and evaluate the results.
After a similar discussion with the third and fourth graders about content they split into groups and followed multistage directions (recipes) to separate the proteins from whole milk and soy milk.
Their were three groups one using vinegar to coagulate whole milk, one using rennet to coagulate whole milk and the third using Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) to coagulate soy milk. Vinegar made a cheese sort of like ricotta(not a really ricotta though). The rennet made something like mozzerella. If we have any cheese making experts in the community I would love to learn more. The reading I have done about cheese making chemistry has done little more than point out the depth of my ignorance.
For many of the students reading through the instructions and understanding them before they started was a challenge. This is an important skill because it uses one of the most amazing capabilities of the human brain, the ability to model and predict the future.
The oldest students covered the molecules of life, "what is in food?" discussion and continued on to address the topic of calories in much more detail. I had them break up into small groups and look up the definition of a calorie on the internet. (I give them one computer for 3 or 4 students. This was inspired by a great TED talk by Sugata Mitra called Child Driven Education. The experiment was in part the inspiration for the movie "Slum dog Millionaire."
They found that their is both a physical calorie and a dietary calorie or kcal. The definition of a dietary calorie the the amount of heat that is needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius, at one atmosphere. The high point was an attempt to measure the calories in a dorito chip. We put 100gm of water into a pop can and lit the dorito on fire under the can. By measuring the increase in the temperature of the water we were able to calculate a lower estimate of the amount of kcals in the dorito.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Things that would be good to have when looking for the balloon. If you have any of these it would be great if we could borrow them. Better if you want to come and can bring them
Better yet is there a parent how can volunteer to coordinate equipment?
If several parents want to come it would also be good to have someone to coordinate communication.
Long step ladder.
Long extension ladder
Pruning saw that attaches to a long pole
Bathing suit and towel
Waders ( I have a pair)
A surf board works great to float out on a muddy farm pond.
It looks like we will plan on an early morning launch on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm looking for a few people to get up very early in the morning and drive to the launch site (TBD by winds) and get things ready (2-3 hours) so that Chris and B can drive the students out in the buses. They would could leave as early as 9:00 AM. Assuming that their drive is about an hour. We can attempt tp launch at 10:00. The flight time will be less than 2 hours. That gives us all afternoon and if needed evening to find the payload.
Launch delayed
There is a problem with one of the radios. I have an engineer working on it.
When we lauch it will be as early in the morning as we can make it. The location will be determined by the high altitude winds.
Keep watching here and on Facebook for updates.
Near Space Balloon
The third and fourth graders in Chris Swinko’s class at Summers-Knoll School aren’t just studying space, they are going there. Well, sort of. They are sending a balloon to near space - hopefully over 100,000 ft. up into the air to take video of the earth and the stars. Their science teacher, George Albercook Ph.D. (A.K.A. Dr. G), is a former faculty member of the college of Engineering and used to work with Scientists and Engineers at the Space Physics Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan. With the support of several local businesses, Huron Scuba, Orino Auto and Rocks and Robots Summer camp, the class is not only sending their payload 25 miles high, they will track it by GPS in real time and attempt to recover it.
This is not all the student are looking forward to. Recent studies have reported several new bacteria were discovered in the Earth’s stratosphere. Amazingly, they survive in a vacuum, 40 degrees below zero while being bombarded with Ultraviolet (sterilizing) radiation. Once the students are confident that they can launch and recover a payload, Dr. G. plans to collect a few samples in hopes that they will discover more unidentified bacteria.
The balloon the Summers-Knoll students are using is a giant weather balloon 14 feet high and 12 feet across. Attached to the balloon is a parachute and two independent telemetry systems. One uses an amateur radio transmitter connected to a GPS that sends the current coordinates to a worldwide network of repeater stations and on to the internet. The other use a low power wireless internet style transmitter to send GPS coordinate directly to a receiver on the ground tracking the balloon. Dr. G. says that the two systems are redundant the use independent batteries, GPS receivers, and radio transmitters. In addition to the telemetry systems, the payload has four video cameras. Two are HD high end cameras. The other two are amazingly capable keychain video cameras that cost as little as $14. Dr. G. hopes to promote amateur space science as a hobby and bring the cost down to allow more people to participate.
The launch is planned (weather permitting) for June 3rd, the day after the Ann Arbor Mini Maker Faire. Dr. G. and some of his students will be at the Fair on June 2nd. with the balloon payload explaining how it will all work. You can follow their results in real time. Details at the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/AlbercookScientific
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
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