Week 15

5/8/2025


This week I clarified a lot of the experiments that we have investigated through the last five weeks of the semester. I connected that when a plunger is stuck to a table the particles on the outside are pushing down on the plunger. Another connection I made was when doing the balloon, baking soda, and vinegar experiment we are surrounded by air. When the balloon blows up it pushes air out of the way. When you blow up a balloon in air you are pushing air out of the way. This is called buoyancy. 


It was a little confusing or maybe just mind boggling that when we shook the vinegar and baking soda a gas was produced, but the weight did not change. At the closure of lab it was made clear that there is a gas that was produced that was not there before and it doesn't affect the weight. 


All the experiments that Dr. Nordine has introduced to me and assisted in conducting can be done in my future classroom. I have learned that explaining the WHY to kids is important and as an educator I can do this by asking them process based questions over product based questions to assess their knowledge. Teaching science can be intimidating, but through lab I have become more comfortable with the thought of teaching phenomena to students.



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