Dinner Table Science!

Oct 27 2007

Dinner Table Science!

Published by sandcastle at 1:10.59 p10 under Antarctica - eExplorers and tagged: science

So my Year 8 students came with many interesting and creative questions that could be carried out by Amy Rogers as she takes up the challenge of her Antarctic adventure in November. We vetted our list and finally came up with four questions to explore. We sent off three detailed experiments that Amy might choose to do while there. The nature of the fourth question meant it couldn’t practically be undertaken, but it was a great question, I couldn’t just leave it out altogether. So I’ve turned it into a new form of homework for the whole family, called Dinner Table Science! I told my students that they could share the pain of homework with their entire family at the dinner table, and that they should work as a team to explore ways of finding an answer to the question. The question is:

Would lava erupting from Mt. Erebus in Antarctica melt the surrounding ice or would the ice freeze the lava?

So I’ll see next week what creative problem-solving they’ve managed.

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2 Responses to “Dinner Table Science!”

# russelon 27 Oct 2007 at 11:10.59 p10

Yvonne.

Wow… this is a great question. it would make a great Year 12 exam question… not that I teach Year 12 science. it promises to generate some interesting conversation at your dinner table.

Nice to make your acquaintance.

BTW I occasionally come across interesting stuff for middle school science. I could start dropping stuff I come across into you del.icio.us account. Are you del.icio.us/sandcastle?
# sandcastleon 28 Oct 2007 at 6:10.59 p10

Thanks Russel… and I’d be grateful for any offerings into del.icio.us… try del.icio.us/yvonne.sandcastle.