Setting up Labs

Lab Time should be Happy Time for both teacher and students.

Often it isn't.

Here's how to give yourself every chance that your Labs will go smoothly and your students will learn something in an organized, non-chaotic environment.

Start with using COLOR. Yes, COLOR!

The VERY first thing I did when I started each new school year was tape colored squares of paper onto each desk. I cut out two inch squares of the following colors of Astrobright paper: pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. I would always have two tables of each color, except red, which had three including the work table in the back of the room. This was for larger than usual classes.

When I assigned students to seats, they were by default being assigned to a COLOR TEAM. Since two students sat at each table, this made each team have four students, three in a smaller class.

I had a stack of small plastic baskets. Each year I would also tape two-inch squares of colored paper inside these baskets. I would have two baskets with yellow squares, two baskets with blue squares, etc. Three baskets with red squares.

Each table would get their corresponding team color basket for a lab with the required materials inside.

Some of the advantages of this system:

• I could call one person from each color up to pick up their materials (and return them). I would just say, "Send one person when I call your Color Team ." So two people would come up each time I called a color. Easier than having 14 kids all come up at once. (Same for return of materials.)


• In a cramped classroom, having baskets of materials meant some labs could be done at desks, not at the lab stations around the perimeter of the room. Nice some days not to have to push all the desks toward the front to make room.


• I could aways tell who returned a messy basket and give them a chance to clean it up before they lost clean-up points off their lab rubric.


• The Color Teams worked together as a team for labs, some assignments, and Team Games. When I reassign students to new desks, they changed Color Teams, too. I kept track of all the Color Teams during the semester and tried to give my students as many new Team members each time as possible.

CONSIDER THIS: Set up Color Teams. Great classroom management tool!

Using Google Maps

Google Maps can be used to show the Plate Tectonic Features of the planet Earth.



I discovered this quite by accident once when Google Maps had just added the Satellite Pictures to their site.

Go try it yourself: Go to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Click on Satellite. Do you see the Mid-Atlantic Ridge System? What Google's done here is spectacular! You can show your kids the bottom of the ocean!

You can show them the Mid-Atlantic Ridge!

You can show them tons of others things, too:

• The Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean where the Pacific Plate is subducting under the Eurasian Plate.
• The Juan de Fuca plate as it subducts under the North American Plate.
• The Andes Mountains where the Nazca Plate is subducting under the South American Plate.
• Northern India where the Indo-Australian Plate is Colliding with the Eurasian Plate, thus forming the Himalayan Mountains.
• Iceland where two plates are moving apart, splitting Iceland in half. NOTE: When in Iceland, click on Terrain, which shows where the glaciers "should" be. Then click back on "Satellite" to show how much is actually left. Astounding.
• Go to Hawaii. Show them how most of the Hawaiian Islands are undersea volcanoes formed by the Pacific Plate moving over a Hot Spot.

Click on "More" on the upper-right hand area and see Photos or Wiki entries.

Now, if you have a projection system hooked up to a Smartboard or big screen, you have just an ideal setup! When I've done this, my students were absolutely glued to the screen! They loved it.

At the very end, go back to your schoolyard. Start at the largest map of the planet. Double click on North America. Double click on your state. Keep double-clicking down-down-down to your school. If you are very lucky, your car will be in the parking lot! (Mine still is! The satellite photos are a couple years old!)

Only thing is: be prepared for them to ask to see their own homes!

NOTE: The YouTube video at the beginning of this blog entry is not from Google Maps, of course, but shows the ocean as it appears on Google Maps. This video would also be a great teacher tool! Project this on your Smartboard/Big Screen! Let it play to the end and then "surf/browse" along the bottom for all sorts of great videos, including one called, "Approaching a Trench."

CONSIDER THIS: Add Google Maps to your Plate Tectonics unit!

FUN LINK: Click here for Google Maps.
Click here for Google Maps Guide for Teachers.

The Fabulous Flexagon

I love introducing students to FLEXAGONS!

Flexagons are Fabulous!

Flexagons are flexible hexagons.

Flexagons can be successfully made and flexed by almost any middle schooler if they want to give it a try. I've seen an entire class of 5th graders get caught up in Flexagon Fury!

A Flexagon in a seemingly flat piece of cut and folded paper that has hidden surfaces. When you pinch and flex, you can get the hidden sides to show up.

The easiest one is called the Trihexaflexagon. It has three surfaces, made of triangles (Tri) that fold to form a hexagon shape.

Click here for the simplest blank TriHexaFlexagon I could find. You can play with this yourself and by making one and color coding or number coding each face, you can backtrack to where you have numbers 1, 2, 3 on the sides that make each individual hexagon and then your students can color them.

Or click here to see a colored one and add the numbers in this order.

Click here to see an animation of the flexing of one of these Fabulous Flexagons!

This is one thing I would recommend: making and learning yourself first. Once you are comfortable making Flexagons, you can convey that confidence to your students.

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The other really simple Flexagon in the Tetraflexagon. This series is made of squares, not triangles. There is a Tritetraflexagon (three surfaces) and a Tetratetraflexagon (four surfaces).

Click here to see the Tritetraflexagon and click here for a pattern. I had trouble finding a good blank pattern. Here's a image. Use the image to make your own pattern (or buy a book of them!). Put the "back side" letters on the front in parentheses. The students put those numbers on the back after cutting out the pattern.

Click here to see the Tetratetraflexagon and click here for a pattern. I had trouble finding a good blank pattern on the Internet. Make your own pattern. When I've made them, I put the "other side numbers" on the front in parentheses. The kids knew to put them on the back after they cut it out.

Flexagons are one of those secrets that good teachers understand. It is when we give kids difficult things to accomplish and show them the tools for success, that kids gain the self-confidence they need to face the world.

In other words, give a kid a really hard thing to do! Show him/her how to do it. Then watch them smile!

CONSIDER THIS: Add Flexagons to your BONUS BAG!

FUN LINKS: Basic Flexagon Theory. YouTube Videos.

The Classic Cloud in a Bottle Activity

You gotta be brave to do this one! (Matches in a Classroom?) But it's worth it!

The best way I know how to do this lab: Demonstrate the activity.

But how do you demonstreate without spoiling the fun?

Here's how:

The main principle of this activity: Everyone does this together .

(1) Pass out the equipment to each small group. Warn them NOT to do anything without your direction! (If anyone does, tell them you're sorry they jumped the gun and to step out in the hall.)
(2) Ask each small group to pick the most responsible person in the group who can light the matches. Have them raise their hands. If you don't approve, reassign in any group that needs it.
(3) Talk about open flame safety for a minute. Impress on them that it's important to be safe, etc.
(4) Put a dash of cold water in the water bottle. This can be done with a beaker for each group in the tray of equipment you handed out. (You might have popped an ice cube in each one.)
(5) Watch while everyone does this.
(6) Have every group have one group member shake the bottle vigorously for about 5 seconds.
(7) Then someone squeezes the bottle in each group. What happens? (Nothing) Why? (They won't have a clue but ask them to try to put something down.)
(8) Now the fun stuff: The responsible person lights the match. Some one else unscrews the cap. The lighter drops the match in the bottle. The other person quickly recaps the bottle.
(9) The bottle gets shaken again.
(10) The bottle gets squeezed again. Squeeze. Release. Squeeze. Release. They should see it get foggy when it's squeezed. If not demonstrate with your bottle. They are looking for little cumulus clouds floating in the bottle. They are actually only going to see fog in the bottle.
(11) Have them read the explanation. Talk about CONDENSATION NUCLEI.
(12) You can have them do the hot water if you want. Not really necessary.
(13) Not hardly worth taking points for this activity. Might be a good time to roll into a Clouds PPT with FollowSheet (coming soon).
(14) Give them time to redo the experiment a couple times. It's FUN!!

NOTE: Always a good idea to do this activity yourself several times so you know what to expect. That way you'll know how much water to tell them to put in the bottle. It's different for different-sized bottles. Also the match can burn a hole in the bottom of the bottle.)

CONSIDER THIS: Make Clouds in your Classroom!

FUN LINK: Click here for the Cloud in a Bottle Activity.
Click here for Cloud Types Word Search.

Teaching Fossils

I loved teaching Fossils!

Great fun with high interest for your students. They love to study fossils!

Here are three active-learning based activities all rolled into one package. Well, actually, three packages. It was too big to upload all in one package.

Activity One is a Fossil or NonFossil? Lab.
Good way to introduce fossils to your students. They get fossils mixed up with things like modern shells (just mother nature!) and pottery shards (artifacts). Can be done with a variety of materials. Really nice if you have a pottery shard. We had them in our department. Make some if you can. Break up something you painted at a pottery store and get it really dirty.

Activity Two is a real-deal Fossil Lab, simplified for middle school students. I don't think it's necessary for younger students to memorize anything about fossils. At the middle school level, your goal is to teach what a fossil is, what an index fossil is, and what type of time index fossils can indicate (relative).

Activity Three is a wonderful Mystery Bones Activity. It's been around for years. I have no idea where the original originated. I used it at least 15-20 years ago.

FUN BONUS: Fossil Word Search Puzzle.

Beyond that, make sure they have fun!

CONSIDER THIS: Add a few Fossil Activities to your Geologic History unit.