This week’s experiment on heat transfer at home had me using aluminum, cork, paper towels and rubber to try to contain the heat from water within a mug.  The results of the experiment showed that heat was better contained by aluminum.  The worst performing material was paper towers.  The rubber and cork performed in the middle with same results.  If I could redo this experiment, I would have a used a thicker rubber substance. 

If I were to conduct the experiment with my students, I would want them to learn that different materials are better able to contain heat and this is why we use it real world applications.  When designing future experiments or ideas they may have.  The knowledge of insulators can be useful.

In this experiment, I answered the question, how do different surfaces affect the momentum of marbles?  To do this experiment I to roll the marble on the flat surface and observe what happened.  I used 6 different surfaces: Styrofoam, t-shirt, towel, glass, cardboard and, a plastic bag. Once I conducted the experiment, the results were as I expected.  The results of the experiment were placed on a table I created:

Table 1. Impact surfaces have on momentum of marbles.

Surface	Impact on Momentum
	Observation
Wood	The marble rolled and then stopped and rolled in the opposite directed (slanted floors).  If thrown with more energy, will bounce of wall and roll in opposite direction until energy is used.
Styrofoam	Slower momentum than the wooden surface.
T-Shirt	Approximately same momentum on T-shirt as wood when T-Shirt is flat.  If t-shirt is wrinkled the momentum stops.
Towel	Momentum slows quickly and stops shortly after throwing
Plastic	Approximately same momentum as wood.
Flat Cardboard	Approximately same momentum
Plastic Bag	Slowed momentum

After conducting the experiment, I decided to explore further and the marble in a container with water and the momentum was slower.  Then I rolled the marble in thick oil.  The oil slowed the momentum, however, when covered in oil in thin, the marble would roll without much help.  Depending on how it landed in the oil, it would not roll but slide. 

The challenges I face while designing the experiment was that I wanted conduct the experiment in a more recordable method.  I wanted to time the marble going down the surfaces at an angle.  That way the method was uniform.  However, when I conducted a trial, the marble rolled down so quickly that I did not have enough time to even press start on the timer.  I then had to use a procedure where I would toss the marble on the surface.  There would be many variables, the angle, the force and the height that would not be able to be replicated. 

The modifications I would make to this experiment are that I would make measurable.  I wanted the experiment to be timed or have some uniformity for more replicable and reliable results.  The way I would modify this experiment for students in my classroom, is to include a task where students would play a traditional game on different surfaces and observe their gameplay and how their strategies to win changed, for example, if they had to hit it harder or softer. The objective of this would be to have students understand that different surfaces have different friction.  This amount of friction has an effect of momentum and motion.  I believe that this achievable with this inquiry activity.

The Polar Flood

If the polar ice caps were to melt, there would be a disastrous chain of events that will be unleashed on the Earth that we are unprepared for.  Because the so much water is stored in the ice caps, it allows for land to be available for land life to be possible, if the water is released, it will flood the low lying areas that for millennia, people and animals have called home.  The importance of the ice caps go far beyond the potential flooding, the cooling of the world's oceans could lead to the breakdown of currents that run the entire global system.  If warm and cold currents were to be altered, life giving nutrients would not be available to the global ecosystem leading to systemic bio collapse.  We don't fully understand the unknown consequences of the ice caps melting but studying it in depth will help us better prepare for what scientists are now calling inevitable. 

As students investigate this it is important to provide many avenues of inquiry as possible.  The science behind global warming is vast taking into account many different field.  How does a teacher provide for as many inquiry opportunities within the content without becoming overwhelming.  For example, having students study climate change through the lens of meteorology, astronomy, oceanographers, atmospheric science along with practical sciences such as engineering.  All these fields are important in understanding the larger picture but incorporating them in the classroom is difficult.

This week I had to write a lesson plan for my science course.  It was a challenging task because I wanted to think of a good meaningful experiment to use in my lesson.  In fourth grade, they are tested in science and one of the big performance tasks involves conductors and insulators.  This is a meaningful concepts that explains their world and helps prepare them for the big assessment.  As I used the five E's strategy that our professor guided us toward, it made me think about what the student's experience was instead of my own, it made me start thinking about what their answers to my prompts would be and how that could be a way to drive the instruction.  I usually plan my lesson with an objective in mind and what I need to do to get there, but this made me think more about the student's experiences.  If I were to implement this lesson in my classroom, I would face language issues that may impede the understanding of what I want the kids to learn.  But using visual references hopefully this can be overcome.