I found an article

Dangerous Discussions: Voice and Power in My Classroom

It made me think about how we manage discussions in my classroom. I have difficulty getting students to engage. Part of which I put down to their unfamiliarity with the content but I still have to develop my discussion management skills to enable the shy and quiet to have their say, and to not have the loud/confident students dominate.

My classes have a different mix of ethnicity to the one in the article. Some have minority groups, as defined by society, are  in the majority in their class. That would give a different air to the discussion. Also the difference in subject matter will have an effect. Science is a difficult subject for many, and they do not often feel as informed as they might in a discussion on social issues that that live, as in the article.

I am inspired to try some of the suggestions in this article with my classes.

Making the Junior curriculum concept driven and student-led

LEM and I have been chatting about how we could make the junior curriculum more relevant to the students and the world they live in. We started thinking about all the ways climate change could be used to hook into the science junior curriculum. How it could be used as a context for multiple content needs in science.

We threw around some ideas at morning tea time, then while my class were doing an assessment I started to pull them into a mindmap using Coggle to link the ideas of climate change, to the Science content, and on to the type of assessments or investigations that could be done.

The goal would be for students to investigate their own interests within a larger framework. When I started to link the content that is essential to Year 9 and 10 it turned out the whole two years could be investigated within the context of Climate Change in Year 9 or Sustainability in Year 10.

The intention is to allow teachers some fluidity in what and how they teach allowing them to follow the students interests. The assessments can be chosen by the teacher to be either a research investigation, using secondary sources; or a practical investigation collating primary data.
Each class would be constrained by having to do at least 6 assessments to report back on, at least 3 research and 3 practical investigations, and for each content strand in the Science curriculum to be assessed at least once. Students who are really into biology can do 3 Living World  themed projects, as long as they still do once each for Physical World, Material World, and Planet Earth and Beyond.

The teacher can follow the students enthusiasms anywhere on the mind map, or beyond if the students are so inclined. As the assessments are Nature of Science based they are comparable.

SNC has developed some good assessment tools, assessing skills not content, so they can be used across different assessment contexts, but still be comparable. The repeated use of these assessment rubrics, coupled with their explicit teaching in class will allow students to both identify what they need to do within an assessment, and identify what their next goals will be to attain the next level in their progression.

Solubility

Teaching solubility to L2Chem a student asked to see an example of an experiment I was telling them about. With consultation with SGSS we found an example of a non-polar substance requiring a non-polar solute to dissolve it.

The students were happy to be able to see all the range of polar and non-polar subtances acting as solvents and solutes as it rounded out their learning experience.

Student Led learning

During the topic on Acids and Bases one of the content pieces to focus on was Acid Rain. One student was curious about the topic. He did some research on his own, and found a practical to do. He sent me the details and asked if we could do it in class.

The practical was straightforward and was a good illustration of the point. The colour changes using indicators reinforced the idea of indicators while it showed how gases can make neutral solutions acidic.

The rest of the class had greater engagement for this lesson. I had seen this practical before and dismissed it as not very interesting, so it was a timely reminder that our life experiences shape what we think is interesting .


Hi Miss Trewin

I was looking up acid rain recipes because i was bored and found one
that my class could possibly do?

Bromothymol blue
Small clear bowl with a lid
Big glass bowl
Water (10 ml)
Matches (that have a high sulfur content?)

1. Pour around about 10ml of water into the big glass bowl. Add
Bromothymol blue until it makes a light blueish colour.

2. Burn matches and put them into the small glass bowl with lid. Cover
the bowl and let the matches burn out. Collect their emissions and
leave the lid sealed tightly shut.

3. Open the jar and quickly pour in the water/Bromothymol blue
solution. Quickly shut the lid to stop any more of the Carbon dioxide
from getting out. Shake the jar and watch the solution turn a beer
colour!

So yeah. A possible acid rain recipe. I also found some more that
involved spraying plants with acid but that isn't environmentally
friendly and I like my garden so my plants aren't going to die today!