Noor's Science Methods Blogs

 Week 13: Testing M&M's What are we investigating? What is fundamental? Why the colors mix?  Does the color affect the speed of the dye? How did we investigate this? This week we continued to investigate different things and learn how to use particle models of matter in order to explain phenomena. In learning how to use particle models of matter to explain different phenomena we also learned the importance of using models to help students understand concepts, and also pushing them to create their own models. When investigating the questions we had in lab we conducted several different experiments as a class. This experiment rather than being done in small groups was done as a whole class to begin with. Each table got a different color of M&M that they would be conducting the experiment on. Each student got a plate with water in it. As a class we were investigating the question of does the color affect the speed of the dye. The professor told us all when to drop the M...

 Week 12 Properties of Matter What are we investigating?  How do properties change when objects are broken into pieces? What we did to investigate this? In this lab we explored the properties of matter, we did this by discussing what we noticed about some of the observable physical properties of these objects. We made a list on our white board that included mass, density, malleability, hardness, conductivity, and more. We had ten different objects such as crayons, wood, straws, foil, paperclips, corks, and more. Use materials such as graduated cylinders, a light bulb, and a scale we tested all of our different objects to figure out what was on our list. Each object had a small size and a big size of it that way our tests were more extensive.  We found out many things some of the data was affected by the size of the object, but others were not. We also found out which objects conducted electricity, which were dense, which was malleable, and many more. Majority of our predi...

 Week 11 Chemistry Stations This week we began chemistry and focused on many interactive activities of observing different phenomenon occurring. We were pushed to make observations, ask questions, and make claims without being given any answers.  The phenomena we encountered included: plunger suction Ice melting faster on certain materials (metal vs wood) Coke vs Diet Coke floating and sinking Vinegar and baking soda sealed in a bag M & M's in water Condensation on different coke temperatures At each station it was our job to observe what was occurring and discuss with our group why we thought these things were happening. For example at one of the stations the plunger was pushed down onto the table and a suction occurred where it was very difficult to pull the plunger off. As a group we had to discuss why this was happening and the plunger stayed suctioned down. At the M&M station they were placed in water and the colors began bleeding out but not mixing. Our group had...