A Few Updates Courtesy of Some Friends

Bev Cox, Elementary Science Resource Teacher for Orange County Public Schools sends incredible information to the teachers of our district on a regular basis. That's Bev in the picture with me at last year's Regional Elementary Science Olympiad. With credit given to Bev I pass on the following:

Earth Science Week
Get ready now for Earth Science Week 2008, which will be celebrated from October 12-18. The organizers hope that the theme "No Child Left Inside" will encourage teachers to not only bring some aspect of Earth Science into the classroom but to take their classroom/students outside as well! http://www.earthsciweek.org/ Teacher’s page: http://www.earthsciweek.org/forteachers/index.html

Doomed Spacecraft
Jules Verne is about to become a fireball. On Sept. 29, with NASA aircraft looking on, the 22-ton European spacecraft will plunge into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and harmlessly disintegrate. Jules Verne recently spent five months docked to the space station where it delivered supplies, used its engines to help the station avoid a piece of space junk, and served as an impromptu bedroom for the ISS crew. Mission accomplished, the doomed spacecraft is now making its final orbits around Earth glowing about as brightly as Polaris (the North Star). U.S. and European observers are favored with flybys this weekend. If you'd like to see Jules Verne, check the Simple Satellite Tracker for viewing times: http://spaceweather.com/flybys/

Spetember Equinox

A Quick Science Note:
Seasons on Earth change much faster than they do on the sun. Today, autumn begins in the northern hemisphere and spring in the southern hemisphere when the sun crosses the celestial equator. The crossing, called the "equinox," took place at 1544 UT (11:44 EDT) today, Monday, September 22. Happy Equinox!

Take Nothing For Granted....

After visiting a number of science classrooms last year I began to notice a trend. Many of our students do not have mastery of the most basic of measuring tools - the simple balance scale. As we all know, accurate data collection depends upon the ability of our students to first determine if the balance is accurate, and then for them to be able to accurately weigh an object.
With this in mind I created a simple beginning of the year test which I recommend to everyone. The first part of the test is for each table to determine if the scale is balance, and if not they are to balance it. A mini-lesson may necessary before proceeding. Then, at each table I have place a plastic pencil box with 8-10 objects of different size and weight. Each table has identical objects. For my purposes I include a golf ball, a rubber stopper, a D cell battery, a large metal washer, and a variety of other common objects. In my science groups students will identify each object, weigh it and record the weight. Since each table has the same materials (which I weighed before placing in the boxes to determine each is of equal weight) we can assess quite easily the accuracy of the measurements.
This fifteen minute activity may prevent a great deal of inaccuracy for future data collection. Try it.