On Day 14 Sharon needed to bring temporary closure to the toy car module. She needed the class to move on to some other topics for a few months, and then she would return to toy cars. So, Sharon began this day by referring to a comment a student had written in his journal the previous day. She projected it up on the front screen. The student had claimed that a rubber band stretched a particular way would make the car go further because it (the rubber band) had 'more energy.' Sharon then asked the class, what could he mean by 'more energy?' This led to a long discussion about energy, its various forms, and its affects on the motion of cars. The discussion included references to ramps, rubber bands, energy drinks, human energy, and many other examples in various contexts. No experiments were carried out during this last day, but the whole class and small group discussions took about two hours, and focused on issues related to energy.
The first video clip shows how Sharon introduced the activity for the day. [This turned out to be the last day of her implementation of the toy car module.] A student, Kevin, had written a comment in his journal about how one way of stretching a rubber band could launch a car faster than another way of stretching the rubber band. He then wrote that this was because the first way had more energy, but he had written a question mark in his journal because he wasn't sure about it. So, Sharon wanted the class to help Kevin talk about how energy could be involved in this scenario. She called on Caleb and had an extensive and interesting discussion with him about energy. The first video clip below shows Sharon's introduction of the activity and her discussion with Caleb. Download the transcript.
Video Clip 1
Below are audio clips of Sharon talking about various things she observed about this video clip: student ideas, next moves, strategies and energy.
Later the same day, after students spent quite some time discussing their ideas about energy in a whole class format, Sharon asked them to write their ideas in their science journals. During this time some students came up to discuss their ideas with Sharon. The second video clip shows Sharon talking with one student (Kervin) about the energy in a stretched rubber band and then about the energy in ramps. Other students join in the conversation towards the end of the clip. Download the transcript.
Video Clip 2
In the audio links below, Sharon talks about some of the ideas she heard from the students in this video clip, her thoughts about next moves, and about strategies.