Don't Know Much About the Science Books; Don't Know Much About the French I Took...

In a few short weeks, my classmates and I will be going into the classroom to teach a science unit to 3rd graders. We've been assigned a "changes" unit where we will be working with the kids to help them understand the properties of solids, liquids and gases and how these properties can change if they are combined with other matter.

Our lesson will center around dropping tablets of Alka-Seltzer into water and observing what happens. Anyone remember the old "plop, plop, fizz, fizz" slogan? Funny how times "change."


In order to lead the lessons, we're going to have to become the experts in the room on all things that matter...when it comes to matter. This is the first of many lesson plans we'll be teaching, so we need to develop tools and practices in order to properly prepare for each lesson. Here's what I plan to do.


First I thought about the lesson and tried to put myself into the shoes of the learners. If I were seeing this for the first time, as many of them will, what would I want to know? I would definitely want to know what happaned to that tablet! I'm quite certain I would think it disappeared right in front of my eyes. In fact, even before reading the lesson plan, I probably would have said it dissolved into the water, and that's not exactly true either. The real story is that it turned into a gas. But how do I explain that to a group of 3rd graders?

Um....well, how about Google?

1) How does Alka Selzter work?

After poking around on a few sites, I discover that the "fizz" is caused by the release of carbon dioxide when combined with water. Steve Spangler even teaches us how to make an Alka Seltzer rocket! Cool! Maybe for Lesson Plan 3?? *grin*

2) OK, so what is carbon dioxide? Isn't that what we breath?

Cardon dioxside: a colourless, odorless, tasteless gas that is produced when animals exhale (I was right!) and when fuels burn and is used by plans to make food. Cardon dioxide is a "Greenhouse Gas".

Well, that's a good definition, but really not all that useful for my purposes. Let me ask this a little differently.

3) What hapens when I put Alka Seltzer in water?

This yielded differen results, including a link to "the Office of Science, U.S. Department of Energy". Who knew?

A much more palatable answer:

One of the main ingredients of Alka-Seltzer is baking powder. Baking powder is a
combination of some acid (such as citric acid or tartaric acid) and sodium bicarbonate. When the tablet dissolves the components of baking powder (the acid and the base)react with each other and produce a gas (carbon dioxide).

OK, I see, so adding water to the solid, allows the solid to dissolve and react with the water, releasing the gas (a chemical reaction!). The gas makes the bubbles. The bubbles are the gas. So, in a chemical reaction, when two substances react together, they can form new chemicals or products.

I also checked out some of my classmates blogs for additional inspiration. Becky (along with many others) linked to our friends, Moby and Tim at Brainpop, and by watching this video, I learned a new term called "sublimation". This is when a solid changes directly to a gaseous state without ever becoming liquid. This term may be a bit advanced for the 3rd graders, but we can introduce the concept and make sure that what they take away from the experiment is that:

• all matter has 3 "states" (solid, liquid and gas)
• those states change due to changes in temperature and pressure
• it's a purely physical change becuase the chemical properties stay the same

Cool. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.

How the heck am I gonna teach this science stuff?

As a "teacher in the making," I'm feeling a bit hungry for information and resources that will help me figure out how the heck I am going to teach science to children. As someone who is just coming to the understanding that I actually enjoy science, I'm feeling a little like I'm going to be learning and discovering cool stuff right along with the kids.


I do think this is good in somes ways, afterall, we want to show enthusiasm and excitement as a teacher so that our students will feed off our energy, but at the same time, I need to be able to credibly come off as an expert, so I'm going to need some help!


Here's a few sites I found on the web:

Activities, Worksheets, and Lesson Plans (Oh My!): This site is meant for upper elementary and middle school teachers. It contains some really practical, useful materials that are sure to come in handy.

Who doesn't love PBS? This incredible site is organized by grade level and subject but also includes a really great community where you can talk with other teachers, share ideas, get information about professional development, what's new and innovative, where to buy cool stuff, etc. GREAT site!

And just for some fun, I found the blog of Richard Wiseman from the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. He's a psychologist, magician, and author and posts daily on quirky mind stuff. Have a look around if you're feeling the need for something inspiring and cool!

My Science Story

When I think about science classes when I was younger, a couple of images come to mind quickly. Dead frogs and microscopes. Beakers and petri dishes. Mr. Fohey and his Coke bottle thick glasses. What I don't remember is how I felt about science at the time. I don't really have a clear memory either way. I do think it must have been one of the cooler classes...because it sometimes involved hands-on experimentation and seeing things in a new way, rather than just reading out of a book or listening to the teacher drone on and on, but I honestly don't really remember much about it at all.


I don't think I was a particularly curious kid. I was more of a go with the flow kind of kid. I did enjoy playing outside, especially in the woods near my house. I collected crayfish from the brook because they looked like teeny lobsters, and I thought that was very cool. I had a thing for toads and turtles and always seemed to have one or the other in an old shoe box on the porch. In the summer, I collected fireflies and kept them in clear jars with holes poked in the lids. As a summer lover, one consolation I did have as fall approached was that it meant the leaves would be changing and falling from the trees. While I didn't necessarily enjoy the raking, I DID enjoy being able to jump into the leave piles when we were done. I thought of that old memory recently when I sent leaves off to my sister who now lives in Arizona. She misses the seasons we have here in New England, and I wanted to send her a little piece of home to enjoy.

Even with all of these fun memories and interests, I've never really thought of myself as a fan of science, but while thinking about what I would write for this blog, it occured to me that science is all around us, and, it turns out, now that I think about it...I'm actually quite fond of science!

I found this quote defining science that I think sums it up nicely:

"Science is an intellectual activity carried on by humans that is designed to discover information about the natural world in which humans live and to discover the ways in which this information can be organized into meaningful patterns. A primary aim of science is to collect facts (data). An ultimate purpose of science is to discern the order that exists between and amongst the various facts."

--Dr. Sheldon Gottlieb in a lecture series at the University of South Alabama

I think we're all scientists when you define it like that. Who doesn't want to discover ways to find patterns in the chaos? Who among us isn't constantly collecting facts in order to make conclusions about our experiences? Who doesn't want to understand more about the world we live in?

If you asked me even just a few weeks ago if I would have considered a career teaching science, I would have said "NO WAY!" My ideas about what "science" is were things like memorizing elements charts, looking at dead skin cells through microscope lenses, and storing dead animals in clear jars full of formaldehyde. Boring. Ick. No thanks. But now, even after having just one class and doing some quick web searches, I'm starting to understand that it doesn't have to be all about the boring and the ick. Science is cool, it's fascinating, and it can even be fun at parties!