Celebrate the Solstice! - Sundial Activity and More

Cross-posted on the Burlington Science Center blog.

There is plenty to celebrate the week before holiday break, but among the many religious traditions don't forget to take pause on December 22nd to celebrate a very special day in Earth's orbit with your students or children, the winter solstice!

The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year for the northern hemisphere (top half) and marks the start of what we consider winter. For residents of Burlington, the sun will shine for only 9 hours and 5 minutes. Amazingly the day is even shorter the further north you travel, with anyone unfortunate enough to be above the Arctic Circle receiving no sunlight whatsoever! The length of our day is affected not by our distance from the sun but the tilt of Earth's axis. The axis is an imaginary line running from Earth's north pole to its south pole that spins or rotates around. Unlike a top that spins standing straight up, Earth rotates slightly sideways at a 23.5 degree angle. This is roughly the angle one might make to form a peace sign with their index and middle finger.

During the Winter Solstice the earth's north pole is pointed away from the sun, causing the northern hemisphere to receive fewer sunlight hours and less solar energy from the sun. Meanwhile, the south pole and southern hemisphere of the Earth is pointed directly toward the sun and receives their longest day of the year! For southern hemisphere residents, December 22nd is the summer solstice! Because Earth points in one direction over the course of an entire orbit (revolution), we in Burlington point away from the sun in the winter months, but point toward the sun during the summer months. Besides sharing some of the information above with your students or children, consider taking time during the final day or two of the 2011 school calendar to do one or more of these fun solstice activities.

Make a Sundial Class Activity - Produced by the Science Center and specifically designed for Burlington residents, this is a science activity where each student creates and uses their own sundial to tell time using the sun. Students will recognize how their shadows change in length and location over the course of a day. The link connects to a student worksheet and sundial template. Appropriate for grades 3-5. Some cutting is required. Grades K-2 may adapt for younger grades by having kids trace their shadows at different times of the day and answer similar questions posted on the student worksheet.

Computer Simulations and Animations:

Earth in Motion: Seasons - Follow Max around the world and learn about how the tilt of Earth and one's location on Earth influences the seasons (and how Max should best plan his trip!) via Teacher's Domain.

Seasons Interactive Animation - Best used as a class demonstration on an interactive whiteboard. Allows students to mark and predict where Earth will be in its orbit around the sun during each month.  Courtesy of Freezeray.

There Goes the Sun - For more information on the historical perspective of the Winter Solstice and how ancient civilizations commemorated the day, check out this New York Times OpEd piece written by Richard Cohen. Note: most of the material here is not suited for elementary students but is a curious peek into human past traditions!

iPad Apps for Science Educators

On Friday, December 9th I sat in on the Burlington High School Science Department meeting that centered around their use of the iPad 2 in their 1:1 science classrooms. Now almost four months into the pilot program I thought the meeting would give me an opportunity to check the pulse of an initiative that I have been widely insulated from despite sharing the same building. The following apps were all recommended at different times by Burlington science teachers who had become familiar with the apps through their own use in the classroom.

Air Sketch: An app allowing teachers or students to write on their iPad from anywhere and have their work show up on their classroom's interactive whiteboard. What is nice about this app is that there is no extra software to install. The app works by drawing to a blank slate on a website. Teachers pull up a web browser, open the custom link given to them by Air Sketch, and the screens are mirrored. The downside to this is that teachers can not flop back and forth between using the iPad and their IWBs tools to draw on the same screen. Air Sketich comes in a free version and a pay version that more features.

Noise Sniffer: Using the microphone on the iPad, Noise Sniffer measures the decibel levels of the volume in a room or the voice of an individual. While the feature is relatively limited (the app does not collect and chart data for example) teacher's saw this as a great tool to have visible to presenters during presentations. By demanding students bring their voice above a certain decibel level teachers were able to battle a classic presentation problem with students who speak too softly during sharing opportunities.

Vernier Video Physics: Great tool for physics teachers with capabilities that allow students to review classic kinematic scenarios or create their own with customizable variables and the ability to plot travel paths of projectiles as well as pause the motion of objects and analyze their motion and the vector forces acting on them.

Science 360: Used primarily as an "inquiry exploration" app, biology and chemistry teachers will find a literal array of science content in the Science 360 sphere that can be used as a tool to hook students interest into an ever changing mix of science content.

Noterize: Used primarily as a service for students to be able to take notes that include photos taken with the iPad. Two teachers shared that the iPad's camera does an excellent job of taking photos through microscopes that can be added into the Noterize notes. Teacher's also liked Noterize for its ability to handle PDFs. (Note: Now called "PaperPort."

Other Notable Recommendations:

Quizlet: Quizlet was highlighted as the best of the flashcard making tools available. While not an app by itself, teacher's liked the ease of making flashcards and how students would share flash cards easily with one another using Quizlet.

"Molecules", "iCell" and "Virtual Dissection" were also mentioned but without much discussion. The environmental science teacher planned on using the "7 Billion" and "Our Choice" iPads app in her class as topics pertaining to the focus of those apps came around in the curriculum.

"Create-a-Compass" Magnetism Activity

Magnetized needle pointing towards north.

While studying magnetism teachers will often introduce Earth's magnetic field to students with the help of a class set of compasses. Quality compasses can be expensive and unless teachers are planning to have students use them in basic orienteering practice they are unnecessary with the help of some inexpensive materials and a little know-how.

"Create a Compass" is an engaging activity for elementary students that shows 1) How a compass is made and works. 2) Unmagnetic objects made of magnetic material can be made magnetic and 3) Magnetic objects will be influenced by Earth's magnetic field.

Having at least one compass on hand for students to observe as a grabber at the start of the lesson can be helpful in prodding inquisitive questions from students about how it works and force students to think about the value of the ability to navigate and understand one's direction. As the introduction to the lesson comes to a close asking students how a compass works will enlighten the teacher as to how many kids are aware of Earth's magnetic field and who knows that the needle always points "North." Depending on the responses received from earlier pre-questions teachers may want to dive deeper into the difference between geographic and magnetic north or make cross-curriculum connections with early explorers and the uses of compasses which will not be dived into on this blog.

To build one's own compass, students will need:

• bar magnet
• sewing needle or pin
• a shallow basin of water (see photograph for an example)
• piece of cork or plastic.

Students must start by first magnetizing the needle. To do this, students must run one end of the bar magnet from one end of the needle to the other over and over (30-50 times should do the trick.) To confirm that the pen is magnetized had students try to pick up a single staple with the needle. After their needle is magnetized students must place the needle on top of the plastic or cork peace and lay it on top of the water poured into the shallow basin.
With no other forces acting on the needle but the Earth's magnetic field the "south" polarized end of the pin will twist towards the magnetic north pole (opposites attract.)  If the bar magnet is placed near the pin the magnetic strength of the bar magnet will override Earth's magnetic field and the pin will follow the bar magnet.

Background Information:

How a pin can become magnetized is an abstract concept that requires students to have a previous understanding that all objects are made of particles (atoms or molecules to be more scientific.) When an object is made primarily out of atoms of iron, nickel, or cobalt (like in the case of our pin) the atoms physically move and rotate so that they are in alignment with a magnetic field if they come into contact with one strong enough to move them (such as the bar magnet run repetitively over the magnet.) The SMARTBoard file able to be found here is an interactive opportunity for students to take an unmagnetized model of the pin (top) and rotate the particles of the pin in place so that they are all aligned in one direction and magnetized (bottom.)

Shifting Gears

"Goodbye Gear Shift" by fomu on Flickr

This blog has been only sporadically updated over the past few months as I have been busy in transition to a new position with the Burlington Public Schools. As one of their two "Science Specialists," my everyday professional experiences have shifted significantly from classroom teacher to support staff for the system's elementary school teachers and classrooms.

"Musselman's MindTrap" has made way for "Musselman / Science," the web domain to my former classroom blog named for its simplicity for kids to remember. While no longer concerned about my blog readers' abilities to recall, the title is still significant as it signifies the dual focus that the blog will now take.

Musselman / Science will continue to share my professional experiences, but science posts will take on a distinctly different feeling as the curriculum and lessons I am now accountable for will be designed for primary grade levels. October's "Charging Up Students with Electromagnets" was a test run of sorts. In the future there will be no photos shared on this site of students  (unless linked to teacher classroom blogs.) Instead downloadable worksheets, IWB files, curriculum guides and student work will become the focus. The goal of all this is to share the rich resources the Burlington Science Center has to offer free-of-charge. It is my sincere hope that teachers less fortunate to have such a unique support system will benefit from the time and energy spent furthering student learning through the Science Center, no matter which school district they are in.