Wednesday 31 January 2024
Factorising
GCSE Maths - working on factorising - taking one term out and fully factorising taking more than one term out. Plenty of practice using the Wacom pen and screens.
Tuesday 30 January 2024
Sounds
Learning all about sound. Using the Oscilloscope to see the sound made by different instruments and things. Looking at the difference between repeating sounds and once-only events.
Monday 29 January 2024
small quadrat
This is the time of year when many teachers reach the end of the course and find they need to use the quadrants. Few plants are around, and the weather is poor. I use photographs from the camera quadrant and get the students to analyse these.
Sunday 28 January 2024
Cleaning a motherboard
Teaching students that maintaining computers is vital to keep them going. Regularly blowing out all the dust, cleaning the dirty fans, and getting out all the dust can keep the computer going.
Saturday 27 January 2024
Online Chemistry
Investigating Chemistry mechanisms online using Snatoms to examine how nucleophilic and electrophilic substitution work in 3D.
Friday 26 January 2024
Desalination
Helping students to understand distillation using a cold finger to help with the desalination of water. Sea water is harder to come by here in the Middle of England so we made our own from sea salt crystals from Cornwall.
Thursday 25 January 2024
Doppler Rocket
Teaching out on the pavement using the @pascoscientific Doppler Rocket to demonstrate the Doppler effect as the sound changes as the rocket comes towards you and moves away. Helping us to learn about red shift in a practical way.
Wednesday 24 January 2024
Invariant Matrices
Further Maths - Investigating Linear Transformations. Discovering Invariant Points and Lines. Learning how Matricies can help real-world problems.
Tuesday 23 January 2024
Pascals Vases
Lots of experiments are done every year, but sometimes, looking at different experiments, like Pascal's Vases, provides some interesting ideas, especially to help students think about designing experiments.
Monday 22 January 2024
Compound Microscopes
Learning how to make slides of stained cheek cells and view them on a Compound Microscope and then record the sample by using the students' phones. Not many successes but we had more luck with some prepared slides.
Sunday 21 January 2024
Educational Terms
These are a few of the Abbreviations I use when marking students' work. What ones do you use or have been used on you?
Saturday 20 January 2024
Apple IIe
One of the iconic computers of its time - The Apple IIe. The students could see how large all the chips were and the size and capacity of the 5 1/4 floppy disks. How could you manage these programs with so little memory and no mouse?
Friday 19 January 2024
Making Ligands
Thursday 18 January 2024
Determining G by Freefall
A Picket Fence and a @pascoscientific Lightgate and a simple drop and pretty accurate values every time. Some students believe they have discovered a gravitational anomaly in part of the classroom, or this could be a student error.
Wednesday 17 January 2024
Maths in Science
Sometimes, the Maths required in Science, especially Physics, exceeds the Maths learnt and required in Maths. So what is there to do but teach Maths in the Science lessons so the students can learn the Math required.
Tuesday 16 January 2024
G by Freefall
Using the Lego as a G by freefall machine to estimate the drop of a ball bearing 0.5m. For10 tries, we managed an average of 9.7ms-2
Monday 15 January 2024
Air Quality
Measuring the air quality, CO2, particles, and ozone levels. Investigating the damage caused by particulates and looking at the air quality index in Hemel Hempstead, which exceeds three WHO limits, and London, where pollution is way too high.
Sunday 14 January 2024
Finishing the project
Just putting the final touches to the computing projects. Making sure that all the criteria are met and that all the checkboxes are ticked.
Saturday 13 January 2024
Centre of Mass
Determining the Centre of Mass of a triangle using a Plumb line and then testing by balancing the shape on the point of a pencil. Accuracy counts here.
Friday 12 January 2024
Test for CO2
Testing for Carbon Dioxide using Limewater turning cloudy with Year 8. Some household chemicals are used to show they are the same as laboratory chemicals.
Thursday 11 January 2024
Rates of Reaction
Using the @pascoscientific colourimeter to demonstrate the rate of the reaction of Sodium Thiosulfate and Hydrochloric Acid. Probably one of the best and easiest ways to demonstrate the effect of a change of concentration on the rate of a reaction.
Wednesday 10 January 2024
Physics in Maths
Mechanics in A-level Maths for non-physicists is complex. So, in the Maths lessons, I need to get out an inclined plane so they can see and, if necessary, measure the forces, making understanding the Maths easier.
Tuesday 9 January 2024
Superimposition of Waves Demo
Superimposition of waves in action as two small waves meet and pass through each other. The Demo in the wave tank is the best way of demonstrating this.
Monday 8 January 2024
Water Flow Meter
I have the water flow meter back all working again, so Paul and I went out to test it in the River Gade, which has burst its banks. A flow rate of 1.31 m/s at its highest flow rate in a narrow channel at 300mm.
Sunday 7 January 2024
Project Backups
Something I say to my students all the time is to take backups, but they only back up this and that, and only occasionally, so when something does go wrong, and it does, they are horrified by the amount of work they have lost and the time it takes to recover or rewrite.
Saturday 6 January 2024
Phases of the moon
Teaching all about space and looking at what causes the moon's phases. Surprised by how many students didn't know and how most living in the city had never seen stars or the Milky Way. One said that the Milky Way didn't exist because he had never seen it.
Friday 5 January 2024
CHemistry continuing from flame tests
Thursday 4 January 2024
Weather Sensor
We seem to be having a lot of weather events at the moment, so it is worth recording some of these events using the @pascoscientific wireless weather sensor for later use in the classroom.
Wednesday 3 January 2024
Maths Draw a Diagram
Some online Maths Tuition. Drawing a diagram to show what is happening is even more important. Colour coding helps identify which part we are talking about
Tuesday 2 January 2024
Refraction
A simple but still cool trick with a glass of water and an arrow behind, watching the arrow switch directions because of refraction.
Monday 1 January 2024
Coloured Mould
Some interesting Red Coloured mould on an old piece of cheese was found in the fridge. It will make an interesting study under the microscope.
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Chemistry visualising problems
Stereochemistry is very difficult to visualise, even sometimes when playing with models. Even looking at this, some students couldn't...
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Negative feedback is a difficult concept to try and get over so I tried using a balance board and the @pascoscientific smart cart strapped...
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Getting a classic set of results for the titration of NaOH and HCl is not that difficult but it is nice when we can get students to this ...
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Mechanics: the grand meeting of Maths & Physics! Using strobe light & a ball drop for gravity-acceleration calculations and SUVAT fo...