Robotic Hands - Science research

This is the newest research project we are working on - robotic hands.  We received a grant from the Broward Education Foundation, Teacher Adapter Grant, for the hand kits.
http://yaegerco.com/index_files/Page575.htm  This is a link to their page.  The kits take students through the research and design methods needed to create a robotic hand.  Students learn how to use basic tools, troubleshoot problems, take a design idea and manufacture the end product, make it look human or presentable, and use it to perform some basic tasks.  While we are in the earliest sections, already we have students engaged in the critical thinking process and learning as they put their skills to use to bring their product to market.  We will end with some video commercials and marketing products but the students most want to compete in the Olympic-style events to see if their version of the hand will win.  Will post finished hands after Winter Break.

Bears!

We have finished the bears!  Many thanks to Melissa and the International Bear Trust and the University of Colorado for this awesome curriculum.  We did only a few of the lessons in the pilot but plan to revisit the Bear Book in the future to continue to learn about bears.  We found out that what we thought we knew turned out to be very little!  During the course of the lessons, each student adopted his or her own bear and created these wonderful stepping stones.  One we let go to a garden home before we got the finished picture!  During the pilot, we used the iPads and lots of apps to learn more.  Google Earth and the SmartBoard were wonderful ways to locate populations of our own Florida Black Bears.  However, both proved invaluable in learning about other countries.  In trying to capture the spirit of each bear, the students realized that flat glass was not going to do justice to the eyes of each bear.  We create each eye out of 3 layers of glass, placed the pairs of glass eyes into a kiln, and fused the eyes to create realistic eyes of each bear.  The results are  stepping stone replicas that almost seem alive!  This was a terrific way for students to use their research skills and their creativity to learn about bears worldwide.

UV Chameleon Podcast

This is a podcast of the UV Chameleon bead grant we got through Donor's Choose!  A HUGE Thank you goes out to Loews Miami Beach Hotel for funding us 100%.  We had enough beads to have most of the students in the elementary and middle school classrooms each make their own chameleon.  A few high school students got into the project and you will find chameleons on just about all of the students and adults!  The experiments were a success, too.  Lots of adults found out that their fancy sunglasses did NOT protect their eyes from harmful UV rays.  The middle school science classes realized that many sunscreens do not live up to their claims of protection.  We also tested prescription pill bottles for humans and pets to see if their coloring protected the medicines inside.  They do!  Students were sent home to test out window tinting in their homes and cars.  We have found lots of ways to incorporate science experiments in our everyday lives with the little UV chameleon.  The pony beads were obtained from Carolina Biological Supplies or from Steve Spangler's website.  The rest of the items were from Walmart and the local Pearl's art store.

Pilot Curriculum: Bear International Trust - Bears

10/4/12 - We are part of a group of schools piloting a very interesting curriculum on bears of the world.  Their link http://beartrust.org provides a sign-up form for schools to be included in the study.  The pilot ends in December but we have managed to accomplish 3 of the 8 lessons so far.  As you can tell from the rest of the blog, my students learn science and job skills through a science curriculum that revolves around art glass.  As part of their research on bears, the students had to gather details about all 8 species and then pick one species and write a paragraph indicating why they chose that bear and how they would create it and its habitat in a mosaic stepping stone.  Their next step was to find a photo of their bear and create a glass art "cartoon" or pattern for their stone's design.  You can see the beginning of the project below.

To date, three stones are ready for grouting and the rest are in various stages.  I will post finished photos when we grout all of the stones in about two weeks.

We are working on several other grants.  The Elementary students were given a Pets in the Classroom grant of an aquarium and 3 Glofish.  They are learning about responsibility in caring for the fish and they are using their observation and research skills to learn how to take care of the fish and aquarium.   Both Middle and High school science classes obtained two grants for funding for Bionic hands from Yaeger.  http://science.dadeschools.net/secme/documents/2012-2013/HandCompetition2013Dade.pdf  is the link to the current competition where we hope to compete.  As the students progress with their hands, I will post some photos of their projects.  The Middle school and Elementary students are participating in a Donor's Choose grant of UV beads and made chameleon indicators to hang on their book bags.  The beads change colors in the UV rays in sunlight.  The majority of our students take medications that have adverse effects if the students are out in the sun too long.  The chameleon indicators let them know, visually, that the sun's rays are strong.  Using the chameleons, students conducted experiments to test out their medicine bottles, their pets' medicine bottles, a large variety of sunglasses and several popular brands of sunscreen.  During the experiments, students learned about the scientific processes that go into product testing and about advertising claims.  They were excited about being able to keep their pet chameleons.  

The high school reading class decided that they were going to learn about Latin and Greek root words. In order to make this a bit more exciting, we created a mini-research project to go along with learning the roots.  We posed a contest to create a new frog species for a future update version of the popular game app, Pocket Frogs by NimbleBit.  Students had to play the game and learn about the naming conventions the game developers used to create their bases species.  Then they looked up the meanings of the root words and picked one that they would use to name their frog.  The name had to relate to the root word.  The frog could be any combination of colors in the game.  Designs had to be drawn on a template on a Smart board and converted into photos.  We are in the process of developing a lesson plan to go along with the game. Here is one student's frog submission.

In one of our Community-Based Instruction classes, students used several apps on an iPad to track earthquakes around the world.  Quakes is a great real-time app that will alert the user to quakes happening in real time.  The students used the alerts to chart quakes over 5.0.  They had to learn about longitude and latitude, countries all over the world, locate those specific sites and review the damage that occurred.  Students then had to write a paragraph comparing the damage done in a 5.0 quake and an 8.0 quake, both in property and human damages.

So, yes, we are busy this year with a new schedule and a new challenge to our teachers and students to become more involved with the Nature of Science and scientific processes in general.  I will update these grants and projects in about 2 weeks.

New school year - 2012-2013

http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/mikes-dihybrid-frog/1538069/?s=5f4fXx&ref=appemail

Have been very busy getting back into the new school year and the new 7 period day.  There a number of new apps out for the iPad so gather your mobile devices and have some fun!

The link above goes to a short lesson that I created about dihybrid squares when pairing two Pocket Frogs for a biology lesson.  Neat little app and quick and easy to use.

SMART launched their app for the iPad this past week.  I have just finished editing a notebook file that I had stored in Dropbox.  Was easy to dump down to the iPad and edit.  But it looks like I have to email it back to me instead of being able to return it to the Dropbox.  Hope there is a update for that soon!

SketchExplorer, Geometry Pad, and MathGraph all look promising but have not had the chance to play.  Geogbra was to some out with an app shortly, too.

Am teaching two Research 1 classes using the glass art as the base for teaching science skills.  We have completed our first project, fused photo frames.  They came out very nice.  Our second project involves research on the 8 bear species of the world.  We are part of a pilot program testing a curriculum of bears put out by the University of Colorado.  Very nice and lots of info are packaged into 8 lessons that stress STEM strategies.  We are creating mosaic stepping stones showing each bear's face and distinguishing characteristics.  Will post photos shortly of the frames and stones.

Blabberiz.com

I made several cute video podcasts that explained how we use the iPads in class - however, they don't play well with the Mac or iPads - no flash.  So I have removed them.  You can make your own for free on Blabberize.com.

Our semester just ended and we are on more projects.  Ms. Adams did a great Creativity Matters and made Jackson Pollack style canvases and then used a bleaching solution to create some awesome clothing using nature and the sun.  All of the projects were documented using the iPad2 from our BEF grant!  We will post more as we work through our project list.

E's Nature Shirt

E's finished but wet shirt

 This is one of the fused picture frames we made while learning about fused glass and kiln work.

V's painting - It hangs in my office window!

Ms. Adams' shirt before the solution was applied.

Ms. Adams' finished wet shirt