Class on Thursday, November 20

Today we started off class by confirming what is due and also some impotant dates to remember before the semester is over. Dr. E. reminded us of the online simulations and told us to be sure to complete them and then blog about them, which I already have! :) For once, I actually have something done before I am reminded aobut it!! Just kidding! --but I am really bad at procrastinating!! After we talked about the online simulations, we discussed our bell ringer projects that we will complete with a partner. Courtney and I are doing our bell ringer together, but we are not sure what we are doing yet. Once we do figure it out, it should go okay since we will have a work day next week to get things going on that project. After we discussed the final project, Dr. E. asked us if we had any questions. After that, we started to go over the reading guide module 4, but like always, we ran out of time during that but oh well, because the section we did go over helped because the answers were very in-depth. We stopped where we did on that because we had an activity to do. It was called "Electroscope." It was very interesting and I think kids would love this activity! It is a great activity to do because the kids can actually build their own electroscope, which is a device that detects electrical charge. It was very simple to do too!! You just take two film containers with clay in each of them to hold two straws in each one. Then you stick tape on the table and then on each straw to see the pieces of tape repel. Then, you stick the tape to each other and then on the straws and you see the tape attract to each other. Then, you take a balloon and rub a wool cloth on it and hold the balloon by the pieces of tape. Then, you see that the balloon repels the piece of tape whose smooth side was in the middle of the "sandwich" when we stuck the tape to each other and the balloon attracts the tape whose sticky side was in the middle. And when we held the balloon by the tapes pulled from the table, the balloon repelled both tapes. This activity would be a great way to teach students about electrical charges!