sandcastle

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.

The last couple of weeks have seen my two Year 8 Science classes exploring Amy Rogers’ Teachers on Ice webpage as they consider many of the themes in Ecology. We began by looking at the Antarctic continent and taking up the challenge put out by Amy to ask questions and design experiments that she could carry out while she’s there on her big adventure. We’ve spent a little time during our most recent lessons brainstorming questions we have about Antarctica we’d like answered, and then working in groups to plan experiments that could investigate those questions. Students came up with many questions, and some very interesting and creative. One intriguing question they asked is When Mt. Erebus erupts does the lava melt the ice, or does the ice freeze the lava? Great question! Unfortunately this one is a bit impractical in terms actually carrying out (lava between 700°C - 1600°C), but the class will be exploring the answer to this one in some other way! In the meantime, we wish Amy and her crew every best wish for a fantastic adventure in Antarctica!

This edublogging caper is fantastic! I was introduced to the blogosphere serendipitously at the confluence of a set of otherwise mutually exclusive factors. These included the need to set up a web page to mount artwork for posting at Illustration Friday, the commencement of an alternative and rather innovative annual professional appraisal for our teaching staff, and the beginning of a new topic in Year 8 Science. I attended a teacher PD offered by one of our own staff, Jo McLeay at just the right moment in time. At the end of the PD I was equipped to do all three. But it didn’t end there. I keep finding new and creative ideas offered by innovative, enlightened and passionate teachers who are happy and keen to share their experiences and excitement.

So now we’re starting Ecology. I had already planned how to run this, using our own school grounds as a resource and focal point for examining a local ecosystem, considering biotic and abiotic factors and tracking change. Then I found Amy Rogers while browsing through Edublogs.

Everything changed!

Amy Rogers is a teacher working in the United Kingdom, who is planning a research trip to Antarctica. Her blog is full of discovery and fun for students and teachers alike. Not only is she going to Antarctica, but she has had the foresight and generosity to invite students around the globe to take the journey with her, albeit in virtual mode! And she has challenged students to come up with questions and experiments that she can undertake while there. What a great way to engage us all! So that’s what we’ve been doing! We started this unit on Ecology by considering the Antarctic environment first - we began by building a profile of what we imagine Antarctica to be like… just  impressions at first… cold, icy, very cold, desolate, penguins… that was about it at first! Then we took a virtual tour to the continent, taking in photographic galleries of bird species, penguin species, whales, seals, ice and volcanoes. This generated a plethora of questions… some brilliant!

And that’s where we’re up to.

Next we’ll sort and prioritise our questions before selecting one to translate into a formal investigation. Then we’ll send it off to Amy Rogers… and maybe we’ll be seeing our experiment actually happening in Antarctica!