Matt Lorenz

 1. What did you do in Lab? Formative Assessment- Is it a rock? Discussed "Activity Mania"  Discussed Assessment How do we assess our students? Tests, projects, homework assignments, observations, etc. What does it mean to get an "A"? Grade inflation Danger of comparing students using percentages Layers of the Earth Convection currents Starburst rock cycle 2. What was the big question? How can we create sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rocks with starbursts? Sedimentary- Compacted starburst together with no heat added.  Igneous- melted the starburst and let them cool. Metamorphic- Compacted starburst together and use little heat so they did not melt. 3. What did you learn in Thursday Discussion? Sand on the beach came from distant mountains and landforms Diverging plates go away from each other. Make ridges. Converging plates go towards each other. Make trenches.  Hawaii hot spot We measure plate movement in mm/yr Oceanic plates do not move at a consistent rate ...

1. What did you do in Lab? Kahoot to prepare for the test Engaged our preconceptions about the timeline of the Earth Earthviewer simulation Convection Cells Video:  https://youtu.be/B1bOknew3XQ 2. What was the big question? What are the significant events in the history of the Earth? A lot has happened in the last 500 million years The Genus Homo did not appear until 2 million years ago and Homo Sapiens well after that Pangea formed 300 million years ago Largest extinction in Earths history occurred about 250 million years ago 3. What did you learn in Thursday Discussion? We had an exam in Thursdays class 4. Textbook         1. What did you learn? If the entirety of the Earth's history was a clock, humans would appear at 11:59:40 PM.  Earth is over 4 billion years old Snowball Earth- the Earth was engulfed entirely in ice The continents moved over time, first known as continental drift A new supercontinent could form in 250 million years     ...

1. What did you do in Lab? Took a formative assessment on geological time related to the moon Discussed the previous weeks homework "misconceptions die hard" Group presentations Origin of the universe Lifecycles of stars Galaxies Origin of the Earth Black Holes Exploration of Space: past, present and future 2. What was the big question? If it is the winter solstice is in Iowa, how much sunlight is on the South Pole? The sun would be shining on the South Pole a lot. Due to the tilt of the Earth, the sun would be directly on the tropic of Capricorn and the sun would never set on the South Pole.  3. What did you learn in Thursday Discussion? Big Bang Subatomic particle inflated to unimaginably huge size in a fraction of a second. It was an expansion, not an explosion. Time and space were then created. Stars Light didn't happen until about 300,000 years after the big bang. Stars and galaxies form about 12.7 billion years ago. The sun is about half-way through its full supply....

Big Question: How can we communicate to students an accurate scale of the solar system? To explore this question in lab, we were tasked with building a model of the sun and the 4 inner planets, including the moon. The model had to be made to scale. We were allowed to use materials in the room and our group chose to use Play-Doh to make our planets. After given a website link that provided the math for properly scaling the model. Our initial model had the planets far too close to the sun. We realized that we needed to make our sun much larger in order for the planets to be large enough to even see when properly made to scale. We also realized that we needed to use a lot more space. A proper model would not be able to stay in the room. We used a tape measure to measure the scaled distance out of the door. Our sun and planet models can be seen below. We used the tape measure for our sun which was about 330mm.  This activity was a great activity to break down a misconception that our s...