As I mentioned last week, for the next two days, Caputo's Corner will be in North East, MD with the RSPS 5th grade as they attend outdoor education at North Bay. This is an excellent opportunity for these students to gain a deeper appreciation for the environment in which they live, and the Chesapeake Bay region in particular. The 5th grade has been there since Monday, attending classes and participating in a variety of activities, including zip lining. My brother Joe jumped out of an airplane a few weeks ago (do I need to tell you that he didn't bother telling Mom until AFTER the fact?), and I plan on doing a zip line. Not quite the same, but hey, you do what you can.
My role up there will be purely ceremonial. I don't really have any official teaching duties, but I do plan on bringing up a few of the GPS units that I received as part of my own STEM camp from the last two summers. This setting (weather permitting of course) is perfect to get these kids using the various technologies that right now define the 21st century (but could very well be obsolete in 5 years). Last week, my 8th grade students completed a scavenger hunt project where I actually prepared several small geocaches with mathematical clues that they used GPS to discover. I thought it was pretty cool actually, and the kids had a blast. We'll be doing a lot more work with GPS (and associated GIS software) throughout the school year.
Since I know you're all dying to know what else I'm doing in the classroom (and proof that I'm not just faking being a science teacher for the purposes of this blog), the week before last I finished a unit on cell biology with 7th grade, and they just now finished their first lab reports. They then did an experiment exploring colligative properties of boiling point elevation and freezing point depression. OK, so I saved the nerd words for college, but they made salt and sugar water solutions and measured their respective boiling points. It was really cool for a lot of them to discover, "so THAT'S why they add salt to the road in a snowstorm." They should really feel proud of themselves. We are about to start a thematic unit on genetics and heredity. I place a heavy emphasis on probability in this unit, since most genetic outcomes are determined by nothing more than random chance. I have lots of small projects the kids will be doing involving simple probability tools such as coins, dice, and decks of playing cards.
Yes, I will also be talking about sex chromsomes (cue childish snickering...he said "sex" hehehehehe).
Good Lord...the demonstration of hanging around 5th graders bears fruit in that final crack of yours.
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