Matt Lorenz

 This week in lab we started by discussing how to keep students engaged during science. The three pillars that go into engaging science instruction we discussed, were the science programs, teaching style and classroom management. The classroom management aspect is very important and we should always remember to stay positive, provide appropriate pacing, clear instruction and mix in variety to your science instruction. The next two tasks that we completed in lab was a formative assessment that was completed individually regarding how we interpret a graph. This would be a good strategy to implement in an Elementary classroom to see where students are at. The individual nature requires students to challenge themselves and rely on their own understanding. Next, we discussed as a table what materials we would remove or potentially add to our motion tub. We chose to design our motion tub based on a 5th grade science classroom. We decided to remove a couple items like bubbles and the ball...

 In the first week of lab we talked about how and why students should learn science. We should never assume that Elementary students will not be able to grasp scientific concepts. Students can learn about science by interacting with everything around them. One of the places that we discussed in lab where science is everywhere is the playground. As Science teachers, we need to find ways to support student play that is exciting, safe and supports their learning. The scenario that we discussed in lab, was how to ensure that a race would be fair and exciting. Our group modeled our race over a short distance of 10 meters, with one person walking with their eyes closed and the other person walking normal. We timed each individually before determining how much of a head start the person walking with their eyes closed would need. We executed the experiment and the participants finished at about the same time. It would be interesting to see how the results would differ over a longer distanc...