how do you expect me to learn...
tinky
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Female
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Location: en la luna bailando con las vacas
if all i'm doing is taking notes and reading from some book? If you want me to understand photosynthesis then show me a plant! not a fricking plant on some computer screen! I swear most teachers these days lack creativity...
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KBABZ
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Joined: 20 Sep 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Male
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Location: Middle Earth. Er, I mean Wellywood. Wait, Wellington.
I remember science at S.W.I.S., my Intermediate/Jumior-High school (no cheese jokes, they've got a band calles SWIS Cheese already). Throughout the course of two entire years we did a grand total of TWO experiments. That's right, TWO. One on electricity and another on growing beans. How exciting. My sister's had to put up with it too, fortunately she'll be going to my High school next year, which I'm actually excited about!
The S.W.I.S. science days were a big switch from Primary Science experiments. We grew beans back then too, but it was all about how 'Pwants need wight to gwow'. S.W.I.S. was all about 'Plants need the light rays that radiate off the Sun in order to be able to perform photosynthesis sufficentely to be able to survive.' Big mistake, especially when we often got more than two full boards woth of writing to do, and my writing speed SUCKS!!
Wellington High is great, though, because nearly everyday we're going to be doing an experiment. Why, just last week we dicepted a pig's liver (I only just resisted writing 'Cooking with Ms. Nordon' on the board ).
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tinky
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 8,015
Location: en la luna bailando con las vacas
you get do to experiments? man...i've done 2 experiments and those were looking at a piece of newspaper that had the letter e on it and putting potatoes in three different liquids...sugar, salt, and water. i want to look at a leaf for crying out loud! not potatoes! we are not learning about potatoes! grab a hold full of leaves from off the ground and let us look under a microscope. is that so hard to ask? I got so bored during one of the experiments that i started putting random things under the microscope lens. Hair looks awesome up close!
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tinky is currently trying to overcome anatidaephobia. They're out there and they will find you...
tinky's WP Mod email account: [email protected]
you may tire of the world but the world will never tire of you
KBABZ
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Joined: 20 Sep 2006
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,012
Location: Middle Earth. Er, I mean Wellywood. Wait, Wellington.
I bet you want to know what other experiments we do here. Here's a sample of some of the more exciting ones:
Dicepting, as I told you. Neat for cooking show gags.
Once we had to try and figure out how seperate salt dissolved in water from the actual water. Who knew we had to evaporate the water?
Various electricity experiments, usually involving lights and parallel circuts. Students often try and see how much stuff they can electrocute.
Once, we were able to get our science teacher to ramble on about fire alarms, security cameras and other people's privacy. Not exactly what you'd call an experiment, but it was fun anyway!
Various tests of how speed, distance and time work together (in a data kind of sense). Experiments for this range from dropping a toy car off a tilted desk to going out on the feild and running 100m (I'm ALWAYS last! )
We also did various acid reaction experiments. No-one's blew up, but my favourites were the good ol' erupting volcano experiment (just substitute the volcano for a beaker) and lighting a strip of magnesium on fire (think a signal flare, except just as bright).
This last one I didn't do, but a friend in my other class did a pressure experiment, sending used toilet rolls up to the ceiling. My friend asked if they could do a larger version outside, and so off they went and they managed to set a larger scale one up and fire a polystyrene pipe up into the sky...
...they never saw it come down (Yay! New Zealand's first object to get into space!).
Also, we have various safety glasses for the *BANG!!* experiments, and I actually 'borrowed ' my favourite pair; it's shaped like a pair of speedo sunglasses!
_________________
I was sad when I found that she left
But then I found
That I could speak to her,
In a way
And sadness turned to comfort
We all go there
There are a ton of decent science experiments that can be done with minimal equipment. I know most of you are probably in government-run schools and don't have a choice about what you do in class, but try going to a bookstore (or the local library) and checking out a book of simple science experiments to do at home with normal materials. If you're really interested in a hands-on approach to science, this is a good choice, even if it does take some outside work.
The thing with a lot of science (excluding physics, which has about a million some odd demonstrations that can be done!) is that it's too small to easily be seen through an experiment. Photosynthesis happens at the molecular level, which means it is most certainly too difficult to see without a microscope and probably too difficult to observe even with a microscope. In science, there has to be some classroom work and teaching off of a power point or lecture.
Sometime later I'll come up with some experiments I've done in the past and organize them and stuff, but that's another post for another time. Another fun thing to play with is dry ice... or lighting ethanol (which can be found in hand sanitizer) on fire.
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LOL those are both incredibly fun to do in lab... just don't tell my professor that I've done them!
But yeah, I have a hard time learning certain new things too, unless I actually work with the thing I'm learning.
In my science classes, we did a lot of experiments. It was hard for me to write all the stuff mind you, but then again I probably would have had to do that regardless of if I was setting things on fire or not.
But then again, I had a lot of good teachers. (Things where arranged that way). My chemistry teacher on occasion would blow things up. (If you don't have a Chemistry teacher that isn't blowing things up, something is seriously wrong. That's most of the reason people get into chemistry to begin with!)
I was initially intrigued by Chemistry as a freshman in high school. Not having taken chem until my sophomore year, I had seen the sophomores coming out of the chem lab drinking something. They all said that they had made Tang as an experiment, using citric acid and other stuff. I thought that was the coolest thing for some reason, and totally looked forward to that moment when I took chem the following year. Unfortunately, the chem teacher discontinued that experiment for undisclosed reasons... I didn't really know at the time that it was bad practice to DRINK your experiments!!
But yeah, I loved chemistry. Made almost immediate sense to me, and was very fun. Things changed color or caught on fire or smelled really bad. Looked forward to it every day, it was the reason I majored in it in college!
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