Harvey Mudd College
Integrative Experience 197
Seminar in Science/Math Education
PHS Classroom Ideas, Fall 2002
Timeline for leading classroom sessions at Pomona High School
Because one of the goals of our outreach is to convey the excitement and inherent engagement of science, mathematics, and
engineering, the projects taught at Pomona High School should reflect the enthusiasm of the presenters and strive to create equal
enthusiasm in the students. In developing classroom sessions for Pomona High School students, you
will need to follow this timeline:
- 2 weeks (14 days) before the first Monday classroom session:
an idea and a sketch of a 3-week set of
activities/demonstrations/lessons must be decided on (1 page)
- Two Fridays (10 days) before the Monday session:
In-class pitch of the idea to get feedback (informal)
- 1 week (7 days) before the Monday session:
A 3-5 page plan detailing the activities (and materials needed) needs
to be ready for the class to read
- One Friday (3 days) before the Monday session:
final chance for class feedback
- Monday PHS session:
lead the class activity
- subsequent PHS sessions:
adjust plans as appropriate
Ideas (prior years' and some new possiblities)
- Previous year: 2000-2001 (Note that we can't repeat previous years' activities)
- Probability and Statistics (Saeta and Donnelly)
- Lego Robots (hill climber competition) (Dodds)
- Game winning strategies (Yong)
- Bubbles (Yong)
- Previous year: 2001-2002
- Take apart and reassemble disposable cameras
- Use Lego Mindstorms to design cranes and pulleys
- Combinatorics and counting
- Web scavenger hunt
- Make slime
http://www.delta.edu/slime/slime.html
- Create model rockets with trig
- Perspective in art
- Possibilities of varying quality
- use breadboards and components or some
kind of kit (e.g., Radio Shack) to build a simple
circuit,
e.g., timing circuit and build to more complex items, e.g., a radio
how a microprocessor works -- various logic gates and components
building a mechanical adder/multiplier, etc.
can be creative as to the building material, e.g., tinkertoys
- The human pendulum
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sci/sci89.txt
- Parallax experiment with candles
http://www.col-ed.org/cur/sci/sci88.txt
- Electrolysis in the classroom
http://education.indiana.edu/cas/tt/v1i2/electrolysis.html
- hands-on engineering tasks, e.g., strongest bridge, or a mousetrap car
- randomness and statistics -- Tom Donnelly and Steve Adolph ran an activity for
the Spring 2002 Nova Scholar candidates
- take something apart and rebuild it, e.g., clock, computer, circuit, ...
could have two different things: one group: takes it apart and documents it;
the other puts it together from the documentation & vice versa -- with a debriefing
afterwards to find out who was working on whose project...
- expanding universe activity
http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/uni1.html
- Hubble deep-field academy
http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/hdf-top-level.html
- galaxy classification
http://btc.montana.edu/ceres/html/gal1.html#activity1
- expanding pupils
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/pupil.html
- logic puzzles -- Raymond Smullyan's work
- making comets
http://whyfiles.org/011comets/crecipe.html
http://www.noao.edu/education/crecipe.html
measuring comets -- will they hit us?
http://www.noao.edu/education/hipt.html
- are sunspots really on the sun?
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sunspots/galileo.html
- robots from junk "junkyard wars" variant -- make Braitenberg vehicles from real motors and parts
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/teachers/tg/program2/2.3.html
- image processing for measurement (or for other purposes)
http://www.nthelp.com/eer/image.html
- science snacks
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/snackintro.html
Laser Jello -- refraction, etc.
Hand Battery
Motor Effect -- building a DC motor...
- Whose skeleton is in your closet?
http://www.accessexcellence.org/MTC/96PT/Share/sims.html
- Pliable proteins
http://www.accessexcellence.org/MTC/96PT/Share/horn.html
- Sampling carbon dioxide -- SafeClimate.net
http://www.accessexcellence.org/MTC/96PT/Share/culp.html
- DNA extraction lab
http://www.accessexcellence.org/MTC/96PT/Share/windham.html
- analyzing sound data and/or using an oscilloscope for something...
- engineering: "hearing the light"
http://www.eweek.org/2002/DiscoverE/activities/hearinglight.shtml
- lots of engineering activities from "Building Big"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/educator/act_index.html
- bridge contest from West Point
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/manual.htm
- chemistry of hair care
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?BenchmarkID=8&DocID=18"
- Sciencenet links (nice examples of lesson write-ups)
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/matrix.cfm
DNA extraction
Snowman (carbon) dating
* forensics of coins -- see isotopes of pennies
- The Mozart effect -- psychological experiments that could be of interest
e.g., compare Mozart's effect with that of other musicians...
- tracking satellites
http://www.teachers.net/lessons/posts/1616.html
- meter stick as a scale
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ScienceMeterStickAsScale-TorqueLab1112.htm
using one form of measurement to detect others...
- Aluminum foil boat -- challenge to build it to hold as much cargo as possible
combine with puzzle on water displacement
combine with surface tension (how many pennies can be added to a full glass of water?)
- nice bridge challenge including costs and time-to-build
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ScienceSSOKNEXBridges-Architecture510.htm
- grow rock candy (attempted in 2001-2002, but not successfully)
- General web sources of lesson plans