Lessons From Thin Air

For this assignment, I chose to watch the video "Lessons From Thin Air."  You can find the video link on this page:  http://www.learner.org/resources/series26.html?pop=yes&pid=77

I chose this video because I think it's interesting to see how much students really know about the natural world in which they live.  It is essential that we learn which misconceptions our students have so that we can correct their thinking.  Teachers also may have some misconceptions about certain ideas and processes, and it is our job to research these ideas to know how best to teach them. 

I thought it was interesting that even though the 7th grade teacher was doing a good job of relaying information to his students, even the brightest of them didn't retain some of the key elements of photosynthesis.  Sometimes, unfortunately, that will happen, despite our best efforts.  I think that it will take many teachers to plant the seeds of scientific thinking, and starting at a very young age, in order for our students to be proficient at it.

I was shocked that the chemistry student thought that water molecules dispersed into their separate components when evaporating into the gas state.  I had a really good foundation in chemistry, and we were taught very early about the properties of solid, liquid, and gas substances. 

I have an idea for this as a lesson to elementary students.  H20 look like Mickey Mouse -- that's easy to remember.  So you could use that as an example.  Get students into groups of three to simulate the water molecules in solid, liquid, and gas form.  It would be best to do this outside so that they could spread out accordingly and move faster when they got to the gas state.  Obviously, you would tell them that they had to link arms with their group partners during the entire exercise.  Bring cubes of ice and cups of water so they get a visual representation.

I do wonder at the thinking of the 6th grade boy when he was asked about the air in the flask.  He knew that half of the air had been extracted, so that meant that half of the molecules were left and that they were evenly dispersed throughout the flask.  His teacher said that she didn't teach this because she thought the idea was too abstract for an 11-year-old to understand.  She changed her thinking when it became apparent that he was already forming these ideas for himself.

As for the decomposition lesson, I love that the children got to form their own questions and design their own experiments and ways to test their questions with guidance from the teacher.  This is scaffolding at its best.  I am amazed, however, that forest creatures didn't eat their experiments!  If I tried that at my house, everything would have been gone by the morning -- that little wire cage over the apples and carrots would have been a joke to the raccoons around here!  Lucky students!!