Week 34: The Ides of Open House
.Right now, life is all about preparing for the Science Fair/Open House which will be midway through next week.
Project vs. Project-based – what I’ve learned…
In the past, I’ve done projects (with assigned topics) but my co-workers wanted to a do a science fair, where the kids picked their own topics. We had them formulate questions about a topic, and then form a hypothesis. One of the things I like about this group of kids is that they are great at moving beyond re-call type reports into inquiry-based projects. This was a small one, but they did a good job with it (I’ll post some examples later), and easily transitioned from “Hey, I want to mix Mentos and Diet Coke!”, to “Hmm, what could make it shoot up higher? What variables could I change that might effect the reaction?”I’ve contributed to two pieces by Larry Ferlazzo recently, and they share some of what I’m doing to get through