I love the lightbulb!

Club Update

The club went very well last week. It was amazing to meet the new group of students. Their work was truly amazing. We talked a lot about the macro and micro scale. The students learned how to take notes in their science notebooks and justify their conclustions. Great work! The photos below show some of the students at work. This upcoming week we are going to look at Super Hydrophobic surfaces and we have a guest scientist who will join us from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Tracy!

Writing about what is a scientist.

Girl Scouts share their thoughts about the "mystery" substances.

On Saturday Marie and Perba from the Weibel lab introduced microscopy to 14 very curious second grade girls.

MicroExplorers Club starts this Thursday.

MicroExplorers will start again this Thursday. I am so excited to start with another group of students. Every time I begin a new club, I wonder what path they will take and how I will lead them through their discoveries. Here is the plan that I have set up for the first day of club.
Introductions: There is a new group of students who may or may not know each other. I have pulled from various third grade classrooms at Leopold. The only direction I gave to teachers was to encourage two students from each classroom to join the club. If there were more than two kids who wished to join the club, a lottery system could be used to pick the students. Since one of the classrooms did not have students who wished to join the club, I had a couple of extra empty spaces that were filled by a few kids from other classrooms.
What is the smallest thing you can think of? I love starting with this question. It gives me so much information about the student’s prior experiences. Children’s ideas of scale are amazing. I will post their responses. If this group is like all the other groups I have worked with, the smallest thing they can think of will range from a dime to a grain of sand. It is truly a gift to introduce the microscopic scale to children at a young age.
What does a scientist do? In this portion of the lesson I gather a little more information about what a scientist does and I introduce science notebooks. Each child will draw pictures, write descriptions of what they know about scientists. Once again, I will use this to understand prior knowledge and start to get students understanding, and more importantly, misunderstanding. I will post scans of their work.
Microscopes and Inquiry: Then,I will introduce how to use the microscopes and lab safety. Each child will get a set of goggles and a lab coat. They will work in groups of three and use the microscopes to discover the identity of nine objects. I took pictures of everyday objects that I magnified from 10-200X. The students will need to match and justify their conclusions based on evidence. It is a really fun challenge to see the students have to justify their answers. I encourage the students to challenge themselves. Some of the objects look very similar. So, they really must have some solid evidence based on their observations.
Finally they will have to justify their results the other MicroExplorers. I like starting this from the first day. It becomes part of what we will do each day of the club. Conclusions must be based on evidence. I will post videos of the student justifications after the investigation.

Student Understanding of Iridescence

SEM images taken of Coco the Gecko's skin by George Lisensky-Professor of Chemistry at Beloit College

Gecko Skin

Student testing the super hydrophobicity of gecko skin.

Here is a picture of Coco the gecko.

 

George Lisensky, professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has taken SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) images of samples of skin that Coco shed. The images will be posted later. They are spectacular!

Gecko

In the MicroExplorers club we studied how water reacts with various structures in nature. We looked at elephant ear plant and how its structure makes it super hydrophobic (really afraid of water).  This is called the lotus effect.  See previous posts about the students discoveries and the lotus effect. 

Following the lotus effect investigation, one of my students wondered if Coco, our class gecko, also had super hydrophobic skin since water seemed to roll off of him whenever we sprayed the cage.  Coco agreed to allow us to spray him with water and we found that his skin is super hydrophobic. It even maintained its super hydrophobicity after it was shed. 

Children's Museum-Girl Scout Science

Here is a picture of Hannah Tuson from the Weibel Laboratory at the UW-Madison and me doing the girl scout cookie investigation we created to introduce microscopy to girl scouts. We will repeat the investigation on February 20th for troop number 2490.

Insipirations from nature... Kids drawings. Thanks to Greta Zenner-Peterson for scanning all of these for us.

Super hydrophobic stickers that will not come off in the bathtub.

(Iridescent Cloak)

A super hydrophobic roof. (This was inspired by a leaky roof)

No more worries about forgetting money in your jean pockets.

MicroExplorers and Girl Scouts

On February 20th, Girl Scouts will have the opportunity to explore the microscopic world around them. The girls will have to figure out what is in the petri dish to get another badge for the sash. Hint...it is something that they sell a lot of! Researchers from the Weibel Lab will bring scientific discovery and inspire the next generation of scientists.

Fall 2009 MicroExplorers Club at Leopold Elementary School

Coco the gecko

Coco the class gecko has been an inspiration for lots of investigations with the kids. Its skin is also super hydrophobic.
Disclaimer: no geckos were harmed in any of our experiments. He had some water sprayed on him and the skin he sheds has been studied under a microscope.

Toyota Tapestry

I just submitted my shot at the Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science teachers. I am looking to get funding for an after-school science club for next school year. I got a grant this past year from the Aristos Grant program in the Madison Metro School District for the science club that I am running this year, but so many really great ideas came from the kids this year, that I knew I would need more resources. So, I will keep my fingers firmly crossed.


Highlight text to find out what has been magnified 20X. Sandpaper

In the fall of 2009 I lead an after school club. One of the investigations was looking at Super Hydrophobic surfaces. The students tested various leaves for super hydrophobicity. We have a list going of super hydrophobic leaves. We have Nasturtium, Elephant Ear, Brassica, and Cabbage. Feel free to add more that you have discovered.

MicroExplorers

I am starting this blog to record the progress and development of the MicroExplorers After-School Science Club at Aldo Leopold School in Madison, WI. I will share pictures, lesson plans, and reflections.