Notes from a workshop held at the Dutch Neck School, West Windsor, NJ, May 18, 1998, by Steve Hoagland
TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS
To maximize “activity” time, classroom preparation time should be minimized. Unfortunately, in the absence of assistance this means an increase in teacher preparation time. The following are a few suggestions for managing preparation or other aspects of the lessons.
Lesson 1
I had good luck making goo by adding 1 part water to 2 parts cornstarch.
Therefore, instead of measuring out 8 portions of water using the graduated cylinder, you
can have one student from each group in turn fill a 1/8 cup measure from a large bowl of
water and add it to their mystery bags. This assumes that 1/4 cup of cornstarch has
been premeasured into the bags.
Lesson 2
No easy answers for this lesson. A lot of preparation is involved.
Bundling and organizing the equipment beforehand will save time in the classroom by
allowing the students to gather their equipment more quickly. Some of this bundling
has already been done by the kit maintenance staff.
Lesson 5
The small cups may be filled approximately to 10 mL by dipping them into the large
cup of water or pouring from the large cup. This defeats the purpose of
familiarizing the students with the use of the dropper but it might add the skill of using
the dropper as a suction device to remove water if the cup is filled beyond the 10 mL
level. This suggestion is of dubious value unless the students prefer to fill the
cups 1 drop at a time, which I can easily imagine.
I do not see any reason why this lesson cannot be split into two parts. Part 1
- preparing and observing the solutions, Part 2 - filtering. The only requirement is
that the solutions/suspensions remain tightly covered between Part 1 and Part 2. The
master equipment list shows plastic lids for the small cups. These can be used (if
snap fitting without holes) or use plastic wrap with a rubber band around the top.
Make sure that the suspensions are mixed and stirred before filtering on the second day.
Lesson 10
Setting up more heating stations (requiring more supervision) will speed this
lesson.
Last edited September 20, 2000