Day 3

Today students were given their first chapter packet. In place of textbooks, over the years I have created packets of learning materials that include notes, worksheets, study guides and lab sheets that a student may need throughout the course of a single chapter. They simply keep them in a 3-ring binder and bring it to class daily in place of a standard textbook.

We continued our focus on section 1-1 notes, thinking scientifically. Yesterday our focus was on the difference between a theory and a law, and today's discussion was on using the scientific method to solve a problem or conduct an experiment. The students understood that whether they realized it or not, they've been using the scientific method almost all of their life whenever they solved a problem. They just never looked at it before as being a 6-step approach. They always just assumed it was a logical way of thinking (which is what science is all about, thinking logically). On Moodle, I gave students three examples of experiments in which they had to identify the independent and dependent variables within. I also gave them two examples of experiments that were not that well prepared, and they had to tell me what was wrong with the given variables. We ended class by watching a short movie on the scientific method from www.brainpop.com , and took a quiz after it using student responders.

Their first science news article is due on Tuesday, September 4th, and their first quiz on Metric Conversions will be on Friday, September 7th.