Demo Success!

I did the salt battery demo at Union City Middle School today and it was a success! The students were really excited about the demo and seemed to have a great time reviewing the material afterwards. The level of student involvement was much higher than usual. Normally, there are a few hands that shoot up when I ask a question, but today, the students were excited about answering and taking part. All in all, this experience will motivate me to do more demos and hands-on activities in order to motivate students and make science more "real". It will be interesting to see the results of assessment to determine how effective the review actually was.

Salt Battery Demo!

     The middle school that I'm observing for one of my classes is reviewing energy transformation this coming week and I decided to create a homemade battery to help the students see how the chemical energy of the cell is converted to electrical energy. After looking around the internet for some good ideas, I decided to try this one out. It's a pretty simple setup composed of items you can generally find in your home, although you will probably have to purchase some zinc strips. The electrolyte is a mixture of 2 parts water to 1 part hydrogen peroxide. Each cell contributes approximately 0.8V and when wired in series, should push close to 5V with 6 cells. I'm hoping that there is enough amperage to light a small bulb and run a small 1.5V buzzer, showing electrical to light and electrical to sound conversions. Once the demo is completed, I'll try to post a reflection about how it went and what can be improved. Here's to hands-on science!

Hack the Planet: Eco-Makers offer open source solutions to save the world

    

     Makers went wild at an innovation camp held in France last October. There's a growing online presence of makers, or resourceful and ingenious people who just love to tinker and come up with interesting solutions and improvements to everyday experiences. What happens when you put 100 capable makers in a 16th century French chateau and tell them to save the world? You get POC21. 

     This article by Michael Floyd is going to be a great asset for inspiring kids to get interested in science. Many of the projects posted on POC21's website can be done in a classroom or lab setting and will give students the opportunity to work with science, creating solutions for problems they see around them. These online maker communities, magazines, and websites can be very valuable tools for science educators and I highly recommend following several if you're not already doing so!

Demo-A-Day Video

My first demo video for one of my education courses!