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>>teacher: Today, what we are going to be doing is looking at thermal energy and
how it affects molecules. And you're going to show me your understanding since we
worked with it a little bit already by discussing it with a partner and making some
predictions. Now I do want to show you other than what's on the paper what it is that
you're using to make your predictions. So you're going to have a container that looks
like this in your tray that you're going to be getting later to actually see what happens.
OK, so the standard that I was working on was the physical science standard for middle
school where they needed to show that they understood how thermal energy effects
molecules and atoms and what role that would have in changing it to different states
of matter and with the activity they were doing it showed their understanding of how
the molecules would expand, how they would contract in relation to the temperature
changes.
Alright, for the first three minutes, I just want you to read through quietly
just like it says up on the screen and then think about any kinds of questions that you
you might have.
OK, you're going to be again working with a partner making those predictions. So this
will be your elbow partner today. So A and B, C and D. Um, if there is three people,
then again, you'll just work together as a group of three.
In seventh grade science, virtually every day I'm asking them to make claims about
things. We visit the idea about the requirement for evidence to show that there's
some reasoning involved in coming up with that claim. And then they are required to
refer back to the evidence. So with the activity what they were doing was using some
of that evidence from prior activities um to come up with predictions. And then um as
they were working in a group, they could reason out basically whether their claim was
accurate even before they put it on paper because it gave them an opportunity to talk.
>>teacher: As they were going through the activity and seeing what actually occurred,
then they were given even more evidence to support the claims that they were coming up
with and uh they basically reasoned out from that evidence, that day, what they could
do as a prediction for the next step. And then in the next step, yet again, they're
asked to make another claim where they're going to be using evidence from the activity
they did, from discussions they had, from uh prior activities that were done as
as simulations, as reading, um whatever it might be.
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>>teacher: And uh, go ahead and set the uh container with the balloon and all the air
inside back into the tray. Uh, draw what happened. Again, model what the molecules
are doing in there based on what you saw happen.
So again, we've talked about this before, you've seen some simulations of what's going
on, so you should have an idea what the molecules are doing. In the activity, and
really with any of the activities, I want them to use the proper language, or academic
language, which is what it's referred to a lot as. Um, so I-I kind of require them to
use certain terms that I know fit with the standard that they're working on.
And therefore, on the um paper, there was a word bank that they had to keep referring
back to and making sure that they include those terms as they showed their understanding
of the concept and also show their understanding of the terms.
>>student: OK, so I have molecules. We need oxygen, we need contract, and we need decrease.
>>student 2: Oh, but didn't we just do decrease?
>>teacher: And that's why I like to initially start out where they're working in
groups because that gives those that aren't really confident in their language skills a
chance to talk and experience those words with students that are working on the same activity.
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