Posted by David Wetzel
Google Earth View of Sicily's Mount Etna Eruption 2002
Almost everyday a natural disaster occurs somewhere in the world. These disasters include volcano eruptions, flooding, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, and more.
Most students rarely have a personal encounter with the effects of natural disasters, during their school years. However, almost all will have an encounter sometime during their lifetime.
The most common encounter for everyone with a natural disaster is by watching TV or reading about them on the Internet. This leads to little personal interaction and understanding of the causes of the disaster.
There is one technology today which allows students to watch natural disasters unfold or see the effects after they have occurred — Google Earth.
This free technology provides students with a bird’s eye view of a natural disaster area with remarkable high resolution. Students and teachers have access to this technology and they can investigate the cause and effect of any natural disaster in the world.
Project Based Learning: Studying the Effects of Disasters
When word of a natural disaster is spreading from somewhere in the world or announced on the news, students can use Google Earth to conduct an investigation of the disaster’s effect.
If enough warning is given, for example a hurricane or typhoon; students can view the expected land fall areas before the storm strikes. Then they can view the effects after the hurricane or typhoon passes through the area.
Other natural disasters students can investigate include:
- Volcano Eruptions – investigating lava flows, impact on surrounding vegetation, impact of surrounding region, and if there will be a global impact.
- Earthquakes – investigating the impact on cities, human development activities, and land masses.
- Major Floods – investigating flooded regions, along with impact on watersheds.
- Tsunamis – investigating the destructive power of Tsunamis, by comparing before and after images of a seashore area and surrounding landscape.
Problem Solving: Studying the Cause and Effect of Specific Natural Disasters
Students develop and create a variety of questions to guide their investigations related to a natural disaster. Then use Google Earth, Online Media, News Reports, Twitter, and Skype to follow through on their investigations. Examples include:
- What is the impact on local residents?
- What is the impact on the stability of man made dikes that hold back flood waters?
- What continents are likely to be affected by the ash fallout from the volcano eruption?
- What protection measures did the region have before the Tsunami struck the coast?
- What type of plates make up the San Andres fault in California?
- What other volcanoes are in the area and are they likely to erupt?
Additional Science Projects Using Google Earth
Google Earth and Global Warming Projects
Thematic Units Using Google Earth
Posted by David Wetzel
Earth Day is around the corner - April 22nd - and every year teachers and students try to come up with new and innovative activities.
Recycling is a popular activity to keep the idea recycling going strong. Classrooms often come up with ideas to recycle paper, ink cartridges, plastic bottles, metal cans, and newspapers.
However, there are other recycling activities that students can get involved in to support Earth Day.
First, lets take a look at some recycling facts related to the United States.
Recycling Facts
The Hershey Company in the US produces about 20 million kisses each day using 133 square miles of aluminum to wrap them in; this material is recyclable and most of it ends up in a landfill.
Statistically the United States recycles just about 28 percent of its waste today, which is doubled from what it was a decade ago.
The United States recycles about 53 percent of the paper consumed.
The United States makes up about 5 percent of the world’s population and produces 1,609 pounds of trash per person, every year. This results in 5 percent of the world’s population producing about 40 percent of the worlds waste.
Considering these facts, there is still need for improvement.
Recyclable Materials Often Overlooked
Crayons
One of the most popular coloring and writing instruments in schools today. Instead of throwing worn, broken, and neglected crayons in the trash - Why not recycle them?
- More than 12 Million Crayons are made in the US, EVERY DAY! 100 New Crayons equal about 1 pound, let’s do some math.
- 12 Million Crayons equals about 120,000 pounds, which equals 60 Tons of Crayons made EVERY DAY with petroleum based wax!
- Recycling crayons has made it possible to stop more than 52,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills with the help from schools, organization, educators, and kids across this country.
How to recycle these artistic instruments - simply throw unwanted crayons in a sturdy cardboard box (leave paper wrappers on) and when the box is full, mail it to:
CRAYON RECYCLE PROGRAM
721 Village Road
Pelican Lake, Wisconsin 54463
They will take all these unwanted crayons and recycle them to make brand new crayons.
DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes
The recycling of DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes saves substantial amounts of energy and prevents significant amounts of both air and water pollution attributed to the manufacturing of these items.
- A DVD/CD/VCR Tapes is considered a class 7 recyclable plastic
- To manufacture a pound of plastic (approximately 30 DVDs/CDs per pound), it requires 300 cubic feet of natural gas, 2 cups of crude oil, and 24 gallons of water
- It is estimated that it will take over 1 million years for a DVD/CD/VCR Tapes to completely decompose in a landfill
Since DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes a class 7 recyclable plastic - many recycling centers will not take them. If a recycling center cannot be located locally, box them and ship to:
ACT
2200 Burlington
Columbia, MO 65202
Act requests submission of an Online Donor Form prior to shipment.
Alternative Community Training (ACT) has been a nationally accredited, not-for-profit agency providing support and assistance to adults with disabilities.
All DVDs/CDs/VCR Tapes should be separated from packaging materials and cases.
Additional Earth Day Resources
Environmental Uses of Phone Books
Math and Science - Integration with Environmental Science
Bottled Water Versus the Environment - Case Study
Air Pollution a Concern for World
Posted by David Wetzel
Science Experimental Design
The importance of experimental design in science is that helps students infer about causes or relationships, as opposed to simply describe what happened in a canned experiment.
As students learn to develop their own experimental design they must be able to answer the most important question of all regarding the design process.
Essentially, they are determining a driving question and creating a science experiment to help find an answer for the question. This includes identifying and answering questions that their design does not answer.
Experimental Design Process
Driving Question – students must learn to not ask questions that result in a simple yes or no answer.Experimental design questions must be cause and effect, along with being open-ended.
An example:
- What is the impact of acid rain on the growth rate of dandelions during spring?
Variables – once students have identified the driving question for an experiment, the next step in the design process is to identify variables.
These include:
- Independent Variable – is what is manipulated or the treatment in an experiment.
- Dependent Variable – is what is observed from the effects of manipulating the treatment in an experiment.
- Control Variables – are factors that remain constant throughout an experiment.
- Extraneous Variables – influence the relationship between the independent and dependent variables of an experiment, which the student has no control over. These are variables influence the outcome of an experiment and are undesirable because they add error to an experiment.
Hypothesis – the next step in the design process is developing a hypothesis to determine if the experimental design is testable; i.e., are the independent and dependent variables measurable.
Here is a hypothesis checklist:
- Is the hypothesis based on information contained in driving question?
- Does the hypothesis include the independent and dependent variable?
- Is the hypothesis worded so that it can be tested in the experiment?
Hypothesis examples are:
- Raising the temperature of a cup of water (temperature is the independent variable) will increase the amount of sugar that dissolves (the amount of sugar is the dependent variable).
- If a plant receives fertilizer (fertilizer is the independent variable), then it will grow to be bigger than a plant that does not receive fertilizer (plant size is the dependent variable).
Impact of Using the Experimental Design Process
Now students can make a personal connection to scientific investigation process. A personal connection is essential to internalizing new knowledge and ways of learning. The key attributes of students gain from this process is:
- learning how to design research
- learning how to ask questions
- internalizing new knowledge
- realizing that findings depend on experimental design
- increasing their level of understanding of science
- learning how to investigate like scientists
Additional Resources
Understanding Scientific Inquiry
Experimental Design
