Seabury School challenges gifted children in a community that cherishes each individual and fosters a love of learning, discovery and creativity.




Thursday, January 26, 2012

Excited about the Weather!

As I type this, two students are on the internet looking for weather maps.  Three students are gathered around a weather map, and giving reports (and asking for me videotape them:) ).  Another student is outside with the weathervane, trying to find out where the wind is coming from.  All in all, the Sharks are excited about being meteorologists.  Over the next several weeks, we will be collecting data from several sources to track and predict weather patterns.  We will be watching how this information is shared with others.  We are connecting geography to weather, noticing that the weather is not the same in all places, and how maps are a large way to communicate the weather patterns.  I am anxious to hear the questions that pop up as we gain experience with tools and concepts that we can investigate further.  Below are a few pictures of us hard at work using tools such as thermometers, anemometers, weathervanes, and barometers.
learning to read different temperatures

How warm is this water?

We love doing weather reports, just don't tape me now!

Check out this map, look at the weather in Alaska!

The wind is coming from the southwest right now.

Whoa!  It's really windy out!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

A Conversation about Evaporation

One of the most challenging parts of teaching gifted students is getting a clear understanding of what these students know and understand.  Oftentimes, they have the vocabulary or understanding to some degree about a topic, but when you start to really ask what some words mean, you start to see the gaps.  Today, we watched a Magic School Bus video about the water cycle.  Afterwards, the class was explaining what they learned from it and used the words evaporation and condensation.  However, as I questioned further, I could tell from the conversation that they didn't really get how evaporation occurs.  Below is the conversation I recorded and scribed prior to conducting and experiment to determine the weight of hot vs. cold water.

As you read through this conversation, you will see that the students were relying on personal experiences, and things they have seen on TV, but didn't really understand why it happened that way.  Talking to each other was getting them closer and closer to the cause of evaporation, and we observed it in action to confirm our ideas at the end.


What was the big idea from this video?

AS: To learn what rain does.  First it evaporates, then it turns into clouds, then it goes back down, then it evaporates again and does it all the time

LR: first it starts out as water, then it evaporates, then it turns into a gas and then it goes up into the clouds, then it turns back into water to form the clouds, then it forms back into water and it drops down over and over again

What is our understanding of evaporate?
JL: to go from a liquid to become a gas

What needs to happen for evaporation to occur?
GH: It needs sun
LR: rain
CW: liquid
TV: sun, some clouds, some rain and needs to be water


What is the sun’s role?  How does it go up?
CW: It grabs with an invisible force and pulls it up
AS: It goes up because it needs to form clouds
TV: the sun brings it up
JL: an updraft
LR: a force
VK: a magnetic force
AS: The gas floats up because that’s the way it goes
CW: I know.  Water doesn’t weigh anything.
LR: Yeah, everything weigh something.
CW: Then how can you put your arms up so easy like this (waves his arms)
Mrs. Van:  you think this is no big deal (I wave my arms).  What is the difference in mass?
CW: Oh I get it, my arm is very strong and the air isn’t strong.
Mrs. Van: We have good ideas, but why does it go up?
TV: Because it’s cold up there?
LR:  Heat! Heat! Heat!
Mrs. Van: What about heat?
LR: Heat is a gas, and so it pulls, like a force and the gas and force interacts together and pulls it up
AS: The heat is really light so it brings it up to the sun, not really though…
AM: I think its actually gravity still
Mrs. Van: I think we need to find out what is heavy, hot or cold.
AS: In weird but true, it says that if you hit a baseball goes faster in hot air than in cold air.
Mrs. Van: Why?
AS: I don’t know!
TV: Because it’s heavier.

Mrs. Van: Here’s a chance to think like a scientist.  We have watched the video, talked about it, and now I have a question: Which is heavier, hot or cold?


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Happy New Year!

What a busy first week back from Winter Break! We have started into our new concept of "Interactions between the Earth and Sky" through our study of weather and geography. Also, we have started to learn/reinforce math skills with temperature and time, as we will need these skills to do accurate weather reporting. During this study, I am building on the students' current experiences with the topics as we create webs and do observational drawing and writing. Yesterday, I introduced the concept and immediately the students shouted out "rain, hail, snow, etc." I know they understand the different types of weather here in the Northwest, and through study groups, I hope to examine other types of weather patterns and how they occur, what instruments are used to observe and predict weather, and how weather reports are communicated to others.

The beginnings of our weather web (sorry, I should have used a darker pen)

LR and GH are interacting with this street map
Today's math lesson: Estimating how many of these things they can do in 1 minute.

CW, VK and CH studying a topographical map