Carolina Biological Supply has additional teacher tips documents for the STC/MS modules they carry:
Module teaching helps or product information:
Carolina Biological Supply has additional teacher tips documents for the STC/MS modules they carry:
Module teaching helps or product information:
Here are some snail websites from Kathryn:
The Aki Kurose science department created this set of rubrics to help students understand how to behave during lab. There are three documents:
There are 7 categories, with a total of 27 criteria. The rubrics use “meeting standard” and “below standard” language to convey the fact that these expectations are not arbitrary, as well as familiarize students with more WASL-like language.
Feel free to use or adapt this rubric for your classroom.
Earth Day is just around the corner - April 22! Here’s your invitation to join in on one of the oldest and largest educational activities coordinated entirely on the Internet: The Earth Day Groceries Project. Celebrating its lucky thirteenth year on the Internet, this is a free environmental education activity where students are empowered as educators in their communities.
The web site: http://www.earthdaybags.org
The procedure:
1) a school/group borrows paper bags from a local grocery store
2) students decorate those bags with beautiful environmental art and environmental awareness messages, and then return the bags to the store
3) the store distributes those bags (full of groceries) to amazed shoppers on Earth Day
4) the school sends in a report to the project web site, documenting its participation
You do not need to register. It doesn’t cost anything. All that’s needed is someone to organize the project at your school (other groups can participate, too). Stop by the web site to find out more. You’ll find complete directions, an FAQ, screensavers, PowerPoint presentations, desktop wallpaper, and much more! Developments for 2006: breathtaking new computer wallpaper, a brand new FREE project poster, and (of course!) a project blog - pick up the rss feed and stay up to the minute on project news!
In its thirteen years on the Internet, this project has put several million pieces of inspirational art, carefully crafted on grocery bags by children who cared about their Earth, in the arms and homes of people around the world. In the spirit of environmental awareness, and hoping to make a difference, this message will be sent out once again in 2006. I hope you and your school will be a part of it. Happy Earth Day! - Mark Ahlness
How much red dye is left in each cup when you dilute the 10% solution seven times, each by a factor of 10?
One misconception that students can develop from this lab is that there is no red dye left in the cups where it can’t be seen. They calculate the concentration of red dye in each cup, and see on the EPA charts that even a 1PPM concentration can be harmful to organisms’ health depending on the chemical.
So how many molecules of FD&C Red #40 are in each cup? To find out, I started with the assumption that 10 drops of food coloring is 1mL and has a mass of 1g. You can adjust the following data by whatever % necessary to correct for any error in this assumption.
Water’s molecular mass is 18 (2 H, 1 O). 1 mol of water has a mass of 18g, so 1g of water has 3.34444×10^22 molecules (calculated by dividing Avogadro’s number, 6.02×10^23 by the molecular mass of 18).
FD&C Red #40 has a formula mass of 496, so by the same calculation, 1 g of Red#40 has 1.21371×10^21 molecules. That’s 1.2 sextillion molecules, in 10 drops.
In 1g of the solution of 10% Red#40, which is what Solutions and Pollution provides, there are 1.21371×10^21 particles of the molecule. If that is the mass of 10 drops, the cups have the following numbers of molecules of FD&C Red#4:
1: 1.21371E+20
2: 1.21371E+19
3: 1.21371E+18
4: 1.21371E+17
5: 1.21371E+16
6: 1.21371E+15
7: 1.21371E+14
8: 1.21371E+13
9: 0 (control)
The solution generally becomes colorless around cup 6, and students may think that it therefore has no red left in it. If you evaporate the water, though, you can see traces of the red in cup 6. These traces represent 1.2 quadrillion molecules, which illustrates just how small a molecule is.