Week 4 August 30 - Basic Measurements Lab and Intro to SI Unit Conversion

This week was a fun week of mini-labs! I wanted everyone to have a basic understanding of how to take basic lab measurements. It may be surprising to some, but knowing the proper way to measure volume using a graduated cylinder or measure the mass of an object with a digital balance is not intuitive. It's one thing to read a procedure, but there's nothing like hands-on experience!

In this week's mini-lab, students rotated to 6 different stations and took basic measurements. They practiced reading a thermometer by recording the initial temperature of water and the final temperature once citric acid was added. They recorded the number of drops of water that would sit on the face of a penny using a pipette. They measured the length of a chain using a meter stick. They measured the mass of a block using digital scale. They recorded the time it took for a marble to travel through vegetable oil (viscosity) using a stopwatch and they recorded the mass of an empty graduated cylinder and a cylinder with 100 ml of water as preparation for using water displacement to determine the density of an irregularly shaped object. In summary, everyone should now know how to measure volume, length, mass, and time.

After each group rotated to each lab station, we sat down and used the lab measurements made to practice converting within the metric system. I also passed back the quiz that was given the previous week.. Many did well, but there were a few that didn't do as well as I would've liked. Considering this is the first quiz of the year and I am more interested in the kids learning and retaining information rather than a letter grade, I promised them another opportunity to redeem their grade. 

For those who did not do well on their quiz, they can take a few additional notes on the Scientific Method that will be written within the flaps of the graphic organizer they glued into their interactive notebook covering the steps of the scientific method. The aforementioned graphic organizer is shown below along with the additional notes.

Graphic Organizer-Students will write the additional notes on the flaps.

Additional Scientific Method Notes

Additional Scientific Method Notes

Once students have written the notes on the flaps of their graphic organizer, they can then print out and complete the makeup quiz below. On Thursday, they will only be allowed to turn in their makeup quiz once I've checked their interactive notebook to see that they have the additional notes written. The link below is the makeup quiz:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16kaa8Dh8ZfaQXCxzMcWBs74fJHePJgWy

While I am not a fan of heavy testing, I do think quizzes/tests are helpful to encourage students to study and keep up with assignments. It also helps me as a teacher to gauge retention and understanding of material. 

This week, we will be going over the Metric Conversion worksheet that we didn't get to. We will practice with converting within the Metric System with a class activity and we will begin an introductory lesson on Density and calculating the density of liquids and irregularly shaped objects in order to prepare them for a density lab exercise. This will complete Unit 1 Nature of Science. We will then begin our first Unit on Chemistry where we learn about Matter and Its Properties.