04 fall - dana, kim, katie b
burning cheetos
IThis meeting was devoted entirely to being exposed to the Living by Chemistry curriculum. We had previously been focusing our lesson study on energy and Hess’s Law. During this time in Boston we chose the change our focus. We wanted to still use energy as our main theme, but we decided to not use Hess’s Law. We realized that Hess’s Law was not a good topic for lesson study. Hess’s Law is not necessarily a part of every chemistry class and some of us were not even sure if we would be teaching a class that would include this topic.
There was a lesson in the Living by Chemistry curriculum that used burning cheetos to find calories using calorimetry. All of the fellows got to experience the lab activity at the meeting. It was a great hands-on lesson that really seemed to teach the concept of calorimetry. We were able to see the lab in action (especially with physics teachers to whom calorimetry was a new concept) and felt it would be a good jumping-off point for our lesson study. While the actual lesson would be further developed at the next summer meeting, we started developing ideas about how this single lab could fit into an entire unit plan.
documents and resources
- Video - this is a video of sharks eating puppies
- Lesson Plan - discussing the food chain of puppies and sharks
- Photo - puppies, before and after
- http://tinyurl.com/savedogs - web resources
(c) 2009 ronnster/oharanator productions
