My name is Michelle and I'm a science and maths teacher at st. Mary's started
the sea college it's a Catholic all-girls school located right on the
beach in Wollongong my ear right class is a mixed ability class so all the
girls in it range from students that exceed in their learning but above their
level and I also have students that are on specific educational lesson plans
that need a lot of extra support and help science by doing is basically the
core of what I teach so it provides the lesson structures it gives a lesson plan
of potentially how you could run a particular lesson the learning outcome
for this lesson was basically to define what properties make up a solid liquid
and a gas what do you think this is solid oh it's silly putty and it's
falling between my hands why do you think it's a solid because you can grab
it yeah yeah how about you can have thick liquids all right at the end of
lesson what you're going to tell me is with absolute certainty what you think
the state of this is maybe it's a solid maybe it's liquid maybe it's a gas so
that kind of engaged them at the beginning and the lesson but in order to
tell me what it is you we need to figure out what properties solids liquids and
gases have so what we're going to do is we're going to do an investigation so in
groups we are going to look at the volume of solids liquids gases the shape
of solids liquids and gases and the compressibility of solids liquids and
gases and each group is going to investigate one state of matter and you
can use any piece of equipment you want here
now I want you to squeeze as far as you can doesn't squish no so can you
compress it no so let's put her down in our tables so what's the volume of the
liquid that's inside here 30 mils what do you think will happen if I put it in
this measuring cylinder will change because that one is dinner it'll change
what change it'll change shape just living in see how it's foggy night see
how should you be run there yeah
their notebooks are very personal to them I don't generally write notes up on
the board and they copy it down word for word they are in charge of their own
note taking so the extent of what they've written down and how they've
articulated what they want in their notebooks can also give me a good
understanding of where they're learning is up to and now keep squishing can you
squish just the solid No so what can you say about its compressibility it doesn't
compress by working in small groups all students were able to contribute to the
investigation and were able to see what was happening and then we worked in
larger groups where we could really focus in on making sure our experiment
was correct and valid and change depending on whether you can add more
together to get there any time that it doesn't change yes after you add or 20
yeah yeah to always half their original size and we did that Val I capturing
some steam world water and putting it into one of these juice and then we just
put up in your hand and put any progress they needed to articulate using the
results that they had in their investigation what state silly putty was
in what I want you to do is have a look back at all the things you wrote down
about solids liquids and gases I'll come around and give you an egg full of it
and you can discuss with your group what you think it is what's happened to it
it's small it's molded into the shape can you compress that so what do you
think it is good job so by them coming up with their
own rules and then deciding from their own rules that they set what a solid and
a liquid and a gas were there a lot more enthusiastic and engaged and more likely
to remember that information in the long run