Category Archives: I Wonder

Water Resources and Your Community

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When we started this activity we set 4 goals:

  • To develop an understanding of the distribution of salt and fresh water on the earth (how it’s spread out or separated)
  • To learn what sources of water we use in Winter Garden
  • To create a model of how water moves between reservoirs (places that hold water) within the water cycle
  • And to create a method of calculating the amount of fresh water that could be collected from the roof of our classroom building.

We have finished the first 2 and are now going to move on to the hydrologic or water cycle. Here’s a short movie clip showing the cycle in motion.

Follow this link for more information. This site will require registration if you have not already done so. Give it a try!

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Applying the Old to the New

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Hopefully many of you (students and parents) are visiting the site for the first time today, if so great! Welcome to My Science Space, take a good look around and leave me a comment.

Speaking of comments, I just read a new comment left tonight on an old post from April. When you post a comment it is emailed to my home email account and I read and approve it before it actually shows up on the site (called moderation). In fact I read more than just your comment I go back and read the original post and all the other comments. This post was about grades but in the comments a student asked about independent and dependent variables in a lab we were doing.

Can you determine the independent and dependent variables in the interactions between spheres we’ve discussed in class? Here’s the comment and my response in the post from April, see if it helps.

Comments:

Anonymous said…

Mr. Grant i was working on the mentos lab and i ran into a problem. I think the dependent variable is the types of soda in liters. And i thing the Independent variable is the mentos in meters due to the information my partner gave me.
4/26/2007 6:05 PM
Mr. Grant said…

Let’s go back to some basics:

Question: What’s a variable?

Answer: A variable is an object, event, idea, feeling, time period, or any other type of category you are trying to measure. There are two types of variables-independent and dependent.

Question: What’s an independent variable?

Answer: An independent variable is exactly what it sounds like. It is a variable that stands alone and isn’t changed by the other variables you are trying to measure. For example, someone’s age might be an independent variable. Other factors (such as what they eat, how much they go to school, how much television they watch) aren’t going to change a person’s age. In fact, when you are looking for some kind of relationship between variables you are trying to see if the independent variable causes some kind of change in the other variables, or dependent variables.

Question: What’s a dependent variable?

Answer: Just like an independent variable, a dependent variable is exactly what it sounds like. It is something that depends on other factors. For example, a test score could be a dependent variable because it could change depending on several factors such as how much you studied, how much sleep you got the night before you took the test, or even how hungry you were when you took it. Usually when you are looking for a relationship between two things you are trying to find out what makes the dependent variable change the way it does.

Many people have trouble remembering which is the independent variable and which is the dependent variable. An easy way to remember is to insert the names of the two variables you are using in this sentence in they way that makes the most sense. Then you can figure out which is the independent variable and which is the dependent variable:

(Independent variable) causes a change in (Dependent Variable) and it isn’t possible that (Dependent Variable) could cause a change in (Independent Variable).

For example:

(Time Spent Studying) causes a change in (Test Score) and it isn’t possible that (Test Score) could cause a change in (Time Spent Studying).

We see that “Time Spent Studying” must be the independent variable and “Test Score” must be the dependent variable because the sentence doesn’t make sense the other way around.

Now try this with your independent and dependent variables.
4/26/2007 7:46 PM

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Ice Cream Lab

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I hope you enjoyed making and eating your ice cream on Friday — I keep telling you science is fun!

  • Have you figured out how heat was used? Remember that heat is the movement of thermal energy.
  • Besides the changes in temperature what other observations did you make? Do you recall taking any notes that might relate to your observations?
  • What was the purpose of the salt?
  • Can you draw a picture showing the flow of thermal energy in your experiment?
  • Were there any anomalies (unexpected results)? What might have caused them?
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Out Of Your Comfort Zone

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Some of you are feeling really uncomfortable right about now; not sure what you should be doing with your lab, maybe a bit confused or frustrated. Believe it or not, those are good things. It means you care about doing this right, getting a good grade and maybe even learning something! It’s called taking you out of your “comfort zone” and it’s the place where some real learning can happen.

In this lab you were to examine mechanical advantage using a simple machine called an incline plane. That means you were going to investigate, experiment and play with an inclined plane to see if changing it in someway had an affect on this thing called mechanical advantage.

Our approach was to start with things we already knew. Some of this came from notes on work, and ideal and actual mechanical advantage. Other things came from prior labs where we used an incline plane and/or where we measured different forces. This gave us some ideas on how we might conduct an experiment.

Next was to do some background research. This is where you go exploring. Look information up in your textbooks, other classroom resources and the internet. The more you know about incline planes, ideal and actual mechanical advantage, work and efficiency the better. Part of your research should also have included “playing” with the equipment — doing some testing to see what happens and how to best set it up.

Out of this comes your experimental design, how you will conduct the experiment, what you will measure, and your hypothesis. Skimping on the research and design results in poor quality and wasted work. Planning is very important.

Now you are collecting the data and calculating various things like work, mechanical advantage and efficiency. You’re also making graphs, drawing conclusions, looking for patterns and making comparisons.

Some of you are doing an excellent job — keeping up with your classwork and doing some extra at home. It pays off by giving you some time to discuss your findings with me and confirm that you have done the write-up properly.

Keep up the good work. There is more pleasure in succeeding at something that is difficult than there is when you take the easy route.

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Mechanical Advantage

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We are continuing our study of simple machines by creating an experiment which will allow us to explore mechanical advantage using an inclined plane. To review work and mechanical advantage follow this link, in addition you can use the links provided on the Home Study page under “Study Resources”.

Remember this lab is worth 100 points so it is important to do your very best. All work should be neat and follow the Lab Guideline and Grading Rubric. For periods 1, 3, 4, and 6 the lab will be due at the end of the period this Wednesday. For period 5 it will be due on Thursday.

This is a very busy week for you. Besides the lab you will be receiving worksheets to complete for homework and your Science News Review is due on Wednesday. Don’t get behind, do you work each day.

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