Wednesday is the short day here at MEMTA Jersey City 2014. We arrived at the center, had breakfast, and then headed to our "color" groups. Do you remember which color group I am?
We first did an activity called Measurement Menu. Menu simply means every student (me!) is handed a sheet of activities listed like a menu, and we get to choose which ones we do. We did some super hard challenges! So many of the challenges involved questions, that when presented, it seemed obvious and needed no more thought. Soon, we found out we had fallen for the trick! Here's an example: If the pizza place doubles the size of the pizza pan, do they double the price?
We ALWAYS make predictions, experiment with ways to solve the problems, collect data, and decide if it matched our predictions. The original pizza is in the center of the graph paper. What do you think?
We also practiced drawing tricky shapes on isometric dot paper!
We first did an activity called Measurement Menu. Menu simply means every student (me!) is handed a sheet of activities listed like a menu, and we get to choose which ones we do. We did some super hard challenges! So many of the challenges involved questions, that when presented, it seemed obvious and needed no more thought. Soon, we found out we had fallen for the trick! Here's an example: If the pizza place doubles the size of the pizza pan, do they double the price?
We ALWAYS make predictions, experiment with ways to solve the problems, collect data, and decide if it matched our predictions. The original pizza is in the center of the graph paper. What do you think?
We also practiced drawing tricky shapes on isometric dot paper!
After that, we met with a member of the National Science Teacher Association. He showed us all of the free resources we can use from their website. Would you believe if I downloaded everything that costs money, I'd have to spend over $10,000? Well, for the next year, it's FREE! What a very nice thing for them to do!
Our final activity was called Thirds a Charm. It involved using Newton's laws of force. For example, if you are in a chair with rolling wheels and I stand behind you and push, what would happen? That's an example of a science law discovered by a man named Newton. I can't wait to let you discover all three laws yourself!
We did an experiment that involved putting a material in a small bottle and capping it. The bottle explodes and shoots it across the room! We discovered the science behind it.
Oh, and ALWAYS wear your safety goggles! We have a video of one experiment exploding, but I can't post it here… too bad. I'll have to share it with you in class!
Our final activity was called Thirds a Charm. It involved using Newton's laws of force. For example, if you are in a chair with rolling wheels and I stand behind you and push, what would happen? That's an example of a science law discovered by a man named Newton. I can't wait to let you discover all three laws yourself!
We did an experiment that involved putting a material in a small bottle and capping it. The bottle explodes and shoots it across the room! We discovered the science behind it.
Oh, and ALWAYS wear your safety goggles! We have a video of one experiment exploding, but I can't post it here… too bad. I'll have to share it with you in class!
After class, I went with a group of friends to travel all over Manhattan. We went to Central Park, FAO Schwarz toy store, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, Schmackary's cookies, Bryant Park, and even did some souvenir shopping. We even got squished in the subway! Our highlight was meeting up with Hayley! Be sure to see all 8 photos below!