Ali Craig science methods

9/11/2023 Big Question:  How can we support play that's exciting but not dangerous? What affects how long it takes a swing to go back and forth? In lab, after meeting with our peers to discuss School of the Wild lesson plans we reviewed our takeaways from our recently assigned article. These takeaways we were able to connect to what our lessons may look like at School of the Wild. Then, we began our warm-up activity with the water color wheel. With this activity, we were able to practice the I Notice, I Wonder, I Discovered strategy. We also discussed how we could differentiate for this lesson, specifically for high achieving students if they had spare time, which I appreciated.  Then we completed our pendulum/swings lesson, which began with a formative assessment. This was used as a tool for the professor to see where we were at, as well as a tool for us to reflect throughout the lesson as to how are answers may have changed. Then we partnered up and completed an experiment o...

 8/28/23 Big Question: How can we support play that is exciting but not dangerous?  What affects a rider's speed down a slide? In lab we continued on our exploration of different types of play. This week we were focused on slides, which was very fun because it put the same concept of speed that we looked at last week into a new idea with friction. To investigate this we first thought about what may affect it from what we already know. From this, we thought of weight, height, and the material of both the slide and the rider's clothes, or in our case for the experiment the item going down.  My partner and I decided to focus on the height/ the slope of the slide. Our findings matched our hypothesis which was the steeper the slide the faster the "rider" would go down. We changed our angle each time by 10°.  In lab, we continued this exploration, again using a more scientific lens. We explored forces such as gravity and friction and what effect each force had on objects i...

 8/21/23 Big Question: How can we support play that's exciting but not dangerous? How do we make a race exciting between people who run at different speeds? Play is a huge part of all elementary classrooms, as kids constantly want to play and explore.  Using safe and exciting play can also be one of the best methods of teaching. To explore these questions we watched videos of the Freeze racing multiple different people. Then we were given charts and supplies to conduct our own experiments to see how to make a race "fair" for people going two different speeds.  In lab, my partner and I decided to do one person's heel-to-toe walking speed versus the other's normal walking speed. For this, we found out how fast each person walked ten meters and then gave a late starting time to the person walking at their normal pace, as they would finish quicker.  This method worked best for us as other groups found it challenging to find a good late start time because many of their...