Science Fair Scientific Method

The Birth of the Scientific Method

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), an Italian astronomer and physicist, believed in discovering facts by first forming a theory (or hypothesis) and then testing it in an experiment. This approach, which we call the scientific method, was a very radical idea in his time. People were more inclined to accept ideas that were in line with their religious beliefs or that seemed logical. But many scientific discoveries do not always appear to make sense. For instance, many of Galileo's contemporaries did not believe that other planets had satellites (like our moon) because they could not see them with their own eyes. Galileo was willing to explore these questions that others had dismissed. He also believed in careful observation and measurement and devel­oped the telescope into a powerful tool for exploring the sky. With this tool he discovered four of Jupiter's satellites. Galileo's desire to test his theories through experiment and learn through obser­vation and measurement moved science forward.

The Scientific Method

The scientific method is the backbone of a science fair project. The scientific method has four parts:

Observation

You notice something in the world that you want to know more about, so you ask a question. The purpose of your science fair project is to answer this question.

Hypothesis

You predict why, when, where, or how whatever you observed happened, based on information you already have. Sometimes this takes the form of an "if ... then" statement. A hypothesis is often called an "educated guess" because you base your prediction on facts you already know.

Testing

Test your hypothesis with a procedure. You can do either an experiment, where everything except the particular thing being tested is carefully controlled, or fieldwork, where you study your subject in the natural world. Careful observations and measurements are recorded in both testing procedures.

Conclusion

You state whether or not your hypothesis was correct based on the results of your testing. If your hypothesis is proven wrong, try to explain why. Make any fur­ther predictions your results could point to, and describe any changes to your pro­cedure you think would give more accurate results or be helpful to further research. Also include any questions you may have thought of during your testing.

Procedure

Procedure is the name given to the steps you take to test your hypothesis.

The purpose of science is to discover things about the world, with accuracy, truth, and objectivity. Scientists:

·        test ideas.

·        weigh evidence carefully.

·        come to conclusions cautiously.

·        make conclusions based on facts.

An important part of the scientist's process of discovery is the procedure. A procedure is a list of steps. The steps you plan to take to test your hypothesis must be clearly written out so that someone else could repeat what you have done. Your procedure:

·        gives step-by-step directions on what to do.

·        lists all the materials and equipment you use.

·        provides any instructions you need to build or use equipment.

Scientists test their hypotheses either through experiment or fieldwork.

Experiment

Experimental observations are made in a controlled environment that you create. How do you create a controlled environment? You isolate what it is you are investigating in the real world and scale it down so that it is smaller and more sim­plified.

In an experiment, a scientist tries to look at how just one thing affects a sub­ject. The tricky part is creating an environment in which only that one thing changes. That is why you often see scientists using test tubes, petri dishes, and other small, enclosed settings for their experiment. It is easier to control what occurs in such environments.

Fieldwork

In fieldwork, a scientist goes into an uncontrolled environment and records his or her observations. What is complicated about fieldwork is that while you are recording your observations, you must make sure that you yourself are not interfer­ing with your subject simply by being there. For instance, you cannot count birds in a tree if you scare any away while you try to count them.

Field Study Finds New Life Forms

Your field study may occur in your own backyard or even at the local nature preserve, but can you imagine exploring the deep rifts in the ocean's floor in a submarine?

In 1977, scientists aboard the research submarine Alvin, from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, discovered a new ecosystem, or community of organisms, thriving near volcanic vents at the bottom of the freezing waters of the Pacific Ocean's Galapagos Rift.

The high heat and hydrogen sulfide from the cracks in the volcanoes provide the energy for special bacteria, a staple of the unique food chain there. Other members of the ecosystem are huge tube worms that measure up to 25 feet long. Because they are so different than anything else known by scientists, they are classified in a phylum, Vestimentifera, by themselves. The scientists named some of the new worms alvinellid worms, after their submarine research vessel.

This strange volcanic ecosystem, based on converting sulphurous chemicals into food, sug­gests to some scientists the possibility that there may be similar strange life-forms on other planets with volcanic activity.

Three Ways to Prevent Summer Slide

Many children, especially struggling readers, forget some of what they've learned or slip out of practice during the summer months. Try these strategies to help your reader improve her reading during the summer and beyond:

1. Six books to summer success: Research shows that reading just six books during the summer may keep a struggling reader from regressing. When choosing the six, be sure that they are just right - not too hard and not too easy. Take advantage of your local library. Ask for help selecting books that match your child's age, interests, and abilities.
    
2. Read something every day: Encourage your child to take advantage of every opportunity to read. Find them throughout the day:
• Morning: The newspaper - even if it is just the comics or today's weather.
   
• Daytime: Schedules, TV guides, magazines, online resources, etc. For example, if your daughter likes the food channel, help her look for a recipe on the network's Web site - then cook it together for more reading practice.
   
• Evening: End the day by having your child read to you from the book he is currently reading (one of the six books, above). Have him rehearse a paragraph, page, or chapter before reading to you. Rereading will help him be more fluent - able to read at an appropriate speed, correctly, and with nice expression.
   
3. Keep reading aloud: Reading aloud benefits all children and teens, especially those who struggle. One benefit is that you can read books your child can't, so she will build listening comprehension skills with grade-level and above books. This will increase her knowledge and expand her experience with text, so that she will do better when she reads on her own.

It's hard to keep up a reading routine in a season packed with distractions and diversions. These suggestions will fit into a busy schedule and make reading fun!

www.scholastic.com

Strong Student vs. Strong Person 

I found this article very interesting. What are your thoughts?

Here’s a rough breakdown of the differences between being simply a strong student, and how that looks in the life of someone becoming a strong person:

Strong Student	Strong Person
Good at academics	Good at applying academics to life
Concerned about getting good grades	Concerned about developing proficiency in each skill set
Always knows what they're working on	Always knows what they're working toward
Expresses only agreeable opinions	Respectfully expresses what's truly on her heart and mind
Learns things for the test	Learns things to learn things
Focuses on English, science, math, history, etc.	Focuses on responsibility, motivation, kindness, passion, etc.
Is in competition with other classmates for grades, resources, and attention	Is in concord with classmates to share information, resources, and attention
Asks questions to conform to teacher's expectations	Asks questions to expand his learning and curiosity
Believes in her ability to do good schoolwork	Believes in her ability to overcome obstacles
Does the minimum to get the desired grade	Does the maximum to get the desired learning
Is deterred by failure	Is inspired by failure

The list could go on, but you get the idea. The person described in the left hand column would be a joy to have in the classroom, no doubt. But their motivations are superficial and shortsighted. While they would probably turn in work and earn grades similar to the strong person described in the right hand column, there’s a fundamental difference in the way they operate. Teachhub.com

Play as a Test Prep Tool

Use these games built around standardized tests to build engagement and fuel learning. Standardized tests can be a wonderful teaching tool to enrich and deepen classroom learning.

What?! The prevailing wisdom is that standardized testing drains the life out of a classroom, saps students of interest and engagement, brings on unnecessary and at times crippling stress, and limits the view of what students are really learning in school.

Teaching to the test is a problem, for sure. But using the format of a standardized test as a teaching tool can enhance student learning—the question is how to do this in a way that captures students’ interest.

Here are a few ways to use the standardized test format to promote student engagement.

Play With Question Stems

Have students create the answer responses to a question stem, thinking carefully about “wrong” answers and finding the right language to construct the “correct” response. This is a highly analytical exercise and challenges students to really know and understand the concept being addressed in the question.

Flip the Question

Have students construct the question based on the answer responses. This forces students to identify the patterns and themes evident in the answer responses and thus arrive at the big idea in the question.

A No-Stakes Review

At the end of a class in a particular subject area, have students answer one multiple-choice, standardized-test type of question to see if they grasped an idea covered in class. This is a good way to garner immediate feedback. Time columnist Annie Murphy Paul shares the example of Columbia Middle School in St. Louis, Missouri, where teachers have students take a quick, no-stakes quiz—one that isn’t graded—at the end of each class to see what they learned.

The Quiz Show Format

Play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with multiple-choice questions. The popular ’90s TV show invited participants to answer a series of questions, sometimes enlisting the help of peers through the Call a Friend option, in which the participant could call a friendly source of information. The show also employed the 50/50 option, where two incorrect responses were eliminated from the answer list so that the participant could choose between just two options. Teachers can break the class into teams to play this game. In a more modern version, the Call a Friend option could give students one minute to Google the answer, forcing them to use intelligent search language to find the right answer. Or students could instead ask a friend for help.

Build Your Own Test

Give the class a mixed-up practice test, with the questions scrambled and in no apparent order of difficulty. Have teams of students reorder the questions, moving from easiest to hardest, being prepared to explain and defend why a certain question was easy or difficult. This also invites the students to consider the fact that on a standardized test all questions are equal, with no single question having more value than the others. Many students get hung up on hard questions and spend too much time on them instead of moving through the test to answer as many questions correctly as they possibly can.

Dispute the Question

Have students debate the merits of the wording of a particular question to find flaws, biases, or shortcomings and then rewrite the question with more careful wording.

Building experiences for students to play with a test can help to defuse anxiety, create familiarity and comfort, offer concrete strategies for success, promote collaboration and problem solving, and open up important conversations around taking standardized tests.

https://www.edutopia.org

No one knows exactly where, when or why April Fool’s Day began.

The most popular theory about the origin of April Fool’s Day involves the French calendar reform of the sixteenth century. In 1564 France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. The people who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them.

April Fool’s Day fall on the first day of April.

The earliest recorded association between April 1, pranks and foolishness can be found in

Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales which was written in 1392.                                          kidskonnect.com

Test, Test, Test

I Can Take Tests

Pi Day

March 14th (3/14)

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.

History of Pi

By measuring circular objects, it has always turned out that a circle is a little more than 3 times its width around. In the Old Testament of the Bible (1 Kings 7:23), a circular pool is referred to as being 30 cubits around, and 10 cubits across. The mathematician Archimedes used polygons with many sides to approximate circles and determined that Pi was approximately 22/7. The symbol (Greek letter “π”) was first used in 1706 by William Jones. A ‘p’ was chosen for ‘perimeter’ of circles, and the use of π became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. In recent years, Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits past its decimal. Only 39 digits past the decimal are needed to accurately calculate the spherical volume of our entire universe, but because of Pi’s infinite & patternless nature, it’s a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits. http://www.piday.org/learn-about-pi/

Presidential Experts

Make each of your students an “expert” on one president. Put together a living museum with five students speaking as the commander in chief per day. Use a simple Web Diagram worksheet to dictate which aspects of the president’s term should be emphasized.

Presidential Bingo

Give students a list of 24 presidents and instruct them to fill one in each box of a Bingo card (Don’t forget to leave the middle space free!). Then read a brief description of one of the 24 presidents. Students will check off the president they think you are describing. The first student with five checked off presidents in a row on the Bingo card wins!

Repost from We Are Teachers