Moving Shadows

 In our class, we try to see science less as learning every fact there is to know about something and more as the process of using one's own brain to figure things out. We are working to understand shadows and how they change. We question, theorize, observe, measure, discuss, model, revise our unerstanding and try to make as many connections as we can.



We spent time observing shadows and tracing them with chalk. They moved.

By the time we were done tracing the shadow it had already moved this much-- much farther than we thought.



We spent time representing our observations about shadows and their movement.
This representation shows the sun, our classroom and the shadow cast on the other side of the building.

“Shadows are mostly always not the same size as the object casting the shadow.

Sometimes shadows are longer and sometimes they are shorter than the object casting them.”

 

 

Measuring the building and the building's shadow to prove their point

 

A 21 inch difference

 

“If the sun is diagonal over the object, the object has a bigger

shadow than if the sun was right over it.

Depending on the time, shadows are bigger or smaller.”

 

 

“Shadows move depending on the earth rotating the sun. The shadow is always on the opposite side of the sun. Shadows are objects from the sun’s rays reflecting off other objects.”

 

 

 “Shadows move and grow at the same time.

The sun makes it happen because of the angle.

Shadows are short closer to noon.”

 

“Shadows grow and shrink throughout the day.

First they shrink. Then they grow. We switched it around because it was backwards.

 We realized that shadows shrink from morning and grow from noon to night.”

Confronting Our Misconceptions

When I look back over this conversation, I can guess about things children may have heard. I imagine somewhere somehow (from a book or a parent or a friend) one of these children heard about shadows disappearing at noon.

I'm guessing the initial intent of the comment was to say that when a light source is directly over an object, the shadow is hidden under that object rather than being visible on the ground next to it.

In a effort to make sense a new idea, the children created their own understandings of what it means to not have a shadow at noon. Children.... no, humans do this all of the time. It is how we make sense of the world around us. We build our knowledge. We take new information and try to connect it what we already know in a way that makes sense to us in that moment.

It takes an event that does not match our current understanding of the world to get us to confront misunderstandings. Cat, the math lady, told me a cool phrase for those moments-- discrepant events!

As adults, we can step in a tell children the answers. Alternatively, we can provide room to experiment, room for children to challenge their own thinking after gathering their own evidence. Which is more likely to change their minds in a lasting way?

Andrea: The other day when we were in the forest, Henry said that the 2:40 shadow would always be in the same place. What do you think? Are shadows in the same place at the same time each day?

Giovanni: If the thing that is making the shadow doesn’t move, then I agree.

Emeline: If you did it in the morning it might be in a different place. You would have to record it at the same time every day.

Kirby: It could move a millimeter past that place. It could move so small. It depends on where the sun is.

Giovanni: It would move during different seasons because the sun is at different angles during different seasons.

Andrea: So if it is that last day of winter [the shadow] would be in the same place that it had been and then right when it becomes spring, the first day of spring, it would be in a new place?

Giovanni: Yes. Except noon shadows do not exist.

Rose: At the strike of noon there are no shadows…. or at midnight.

Cameron: There are shadows at noon but they always point north.

Emeline: At midnight they are hard to see because it is so dark they blend in.

Giovanni: I agree and disagree with the shadows of noon pointing north. One second before noon there are shadows pointing north and one second after noon there are shadows pointing north. But at exactly noon the shadows disappear.

Cameron: I say it wouldn’t be pointed exactly north, it would be a tiny slant off. The slant is so tiny it would be too hard to see so it would look like it was pointing north.

Kirby: How does that work that at 11:59 there would be shadows and then they just disappear and then at 12:01…

Rose: We were talking about high noon. At 11:59. the split second it strikes twelve there are no shadows and then there are shadows after that.

A few students give eye witness accounts of this phenomenon.

Ellie: This is something that I want to do an experiment on.

Andrea: Ooooo and experiment!

Ellie: It’s not like you take this gas and this gas and put it together like a scientist. It’s that I want to test at exactly 12:00 what happens.

Andrea: Well we do happen to be at school at noon. So what do you want to do at noon, Ellie?

Ellie: We could just like put a stick in the ground and it has a shadow and then at exactly 12 it might go away and then it will come right back.

Aliza: There is another way. We eat at this… well there is a table on the blacktop and it has this shadow that we eat in every day. It has a big shadow. We could come to lunch a little bit early and then we can see if the shadow goes away because it has a really big shadow.

We go out at noon to watch the shadow.
Does it disappear at the strike of noon?

 

How Humans Learn

This video has really shaped my priorities as a teacher. It starts off with students on graduation day in cap and gown from MIT who cannot complete a circuit and light a light bulb. If they were graduating with degrees in French or Dance it might not be as shocking, but these students are engineers from the best school in the nation. Why is this happening? The film investigates further.

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=76
Video Description: Why don't even the brightest students truly grasp simple science concepts? These video programs pick up on the questions asked in the Private Universe documentary and further explore how children learn. Based on recent research, as well as the pioneering work of Piaget and others, Minds of Our Own shows that many of the things we assume about how children learn are simply not true. For educators and parents, these programs bring new insight to debates about education reform."

 

 

Big ideas I try to keep in mind after watching this

• Just because we "covered" something DOES NOT mean anyone learned it
• Learning the process of learning is crucial. If I help someone understand how they learn I allow them to learn whatever they want for the rest of their lives
• I do not have the power to change another persons mind, they must change their own mind. I CAN try to provide time and experience in which an individual can confront their own misconceptions
• Just because someone can say all the right words doesn't mean they actually know what those words mean

The power of being wrong

In the middle of a class conversation about shadows, we pulled out a stick for a few students to model their point. As a side note, one student pointed out, "See how the stick has multiple shadows? It will have multiple shadows out in the sun, too."

We decided to go immediately outside to test this theory.

 Unanimously the class decided that there was only a single shadow. This was puzzling to some since almost everyone had reported seeing multiple shadows at some point in their lives.

Some of the children looking VERY closely to see if there are multiple shadows.

"Ha! You were wrong!!"
"Wait a second. If he had never made a hypothesis about what he thought would happen, we never would have come to test it. Thank goodness he did because we all learned something."
"Yeah, now we realize that multiple light sources determine how many shadows."

I'm trying to bring this moment back to the class over and over again to remind them of the power of mistakes. I try to use it to help create a safe place for children to take risks and for those risks to be valued.

Shadow Research

Do shadows have different widths at different times of day?

This young scientist measured the width of her shadow at her head, waist and legs. She plans to take the same measurements at different times of the day. With observation she noticed that the height of her shadow changed and wants to measure that as well. 

Do shadows have different temperatures?

Several young scientists take the temperature in the shade and compare it to the temperature in the sun. One child began puzzled, "Can you really take the temperature of a shadow? I mean it is just darkness." We realized that we were measuring air temperature in the shadow and air temperature in the sun.

What will my shadow do if I fall over in the opposite direction?

 This child serves as a model for her friend who is behind the camera documenting her research. "I found out that if you fall over your shadow is always going to end up underneath you."

Other questions being investigated include

Do shadows have a pattern for when they are there and not there?

Do clear things make a shadow?

How far does a shadow move in an hour?

I'm not interested in the children learning every possible fact about shadows. I am interested in the children learning to think and research like scientists. I want to make room for their own curiosity and support them as they experiment to find answers to their own questions.

Launching Into Space

Dear General X,

We have completed our science boot camp. We are ready to launch on our expedition to Earth. We need to plan our route to get there. Can you help us? We have all the tools we will need to understand how the Earth changes.

Please Write Back,
The 3rd Grade X-lings



Dear X-lings,

Well done! I have received reports that your science boot camp was a success. Hopefully your observation skills are primed and ready to go. We are expediting your launch. Your launch will be moved forward to today at 11:30

Safe Travels,
General X

Science tools packed.

Load the ship

Space suites on.

Prepare the ship.

Study the map of our route.

Blast off!

Investigating Earth for the first time. And trying on our role of scientists.

Predictions about what might change on this foreign planet called Earth?

• Grass- might change colors, go away, start growing again
• temperature of water
• water will change into something hard
• land changes to adapt to water
• dark spots on the ground
• things poking out of the ground with frilly things we will call leaves
• temperature of the air
• water- evaporates, gets dirty, gets clean
• some invisible force was sometimes blowing on me and sometimes not blowing on me

Messing about with Measurement

Figuring out how stop watches work.

Experimenting with displacement to measure the volume of objects.
The term "graduated cylinder" gives us the giggles as we imagine the cylinder
wearing a cap and gown and collecting a diploma.

Using a triple beam balance to determine the mass of a can of glitter.

 

Measuring the length of the rug in centimeters, of course,
because that's what scientists use.

 

Science Boot Camp

Later this month, the children will launch from their home land of Planet X through space to visit the foreign planet called Earth. They have been given orders from General X to investigate changes on Earth in order to anticipate what x-lings might encounter if they ever moved to Earth. This mission is vital but also very expensive. As a result, General X is not willing to launch the space explorers until she is sure that their scientific observation skills are sharp and ready to go.  

 

 

In order to help the children prepare, Dan Dan the Science Man came to help the children run a science boot camp. They practiced using their senses to observe various objects and substances. Making detailed observation is harder than it initially seems.

Their discussions about their observations have also helped the class to develop the beginning of a packing list for the trip.
We will need a camera, paper, notebooks, pencils and colored pencils in order to make accurate observations.



"This object is very heavy."

"It smells strange... kind if minty."

 

"I can bend this rod."

Whirlydoodle

 

One dark and windy morning this week, the children were able to see the lights on the Whirlydoodle windmill for the first time. During morning carpool the excitement was palpable. Children, who have since passed on to fourth grade, were also able to observe on the way to their classroom. It was a very exciting morning! Our ideas about energy are not dead and gone. They remain very alive in our windmill collection we have chosen to leave up.

Dilemma

 

So, I have a dilemma. 

Right when we were getting ready to switch our attention from our science investigation of energy to our history investigation of immigration, the children decided that they wanted to build a windmill that could light a light bulb. What a great intention! It would really put so much of their knowledge of energy into practical application.

The thing is, it is turning out to be more complicated than I thought it would be. It is more complicated than I thought it was going to be even when I thought it might be kind of complicated. I'm starting to realize that, in order for it to really work, we would need to use gears to change the rate of speed of the shaft and to adjust for the blah blah blah blah. OK, so I still don't really know what it will take, but I know it is more than we can accomplish in 5 weeks. 

I've been talking to others and trying to process how to deal with the fact that we will not accomplish what we set out to do. And we are still trying to hand over more time to think about immigration. I'm developing some ideas about the whole situation, but honestly I am curious about what you have to say about it. 

What do you think?

How should we face this reality?

Messing About with Wind and Electricity

 The children are working together to make a basic generator with

copper wire, magnets, cardboard and a nail.

Click here to watch the YouTube video that taught us how.  

Pippin brought more toys to play with.

We messed about with big heavy generators (those magnets are heavy),

a motor hooked to a wheel and a voltage meter.

We hooked everything up to his voltage meter to

measure how much electricity we could produce.

The children also dissected a fan that one family donated to the scientific cause.

Guess what! We inspired Pippin.
He is working on his own windmill project.
He brought his blades to show us.





 The children also worked to add to our research windmill collection.

We put an old fan blade on a wooden dowel for one.

The other is a bicycle wheel that the children converted by covering the space

between the spokes with packing tape.  

We are having a great time, but our play also has a purpose. Besides being fun, these experiences are helping us construct an understanding of the mechanics of windmills and electrical generators-- two things we really need to understand when it comes time to create our own windmill. I also celebrate that there are a lot of details that I am learning right alongside the children. Thank goodness we don't have to know everything to be teachers or I would never have the courage to follow the children's aspirations.

Here are a few of the important observations I've heard the children make this week.

 "I noticed something! All three of our windmills spin on their shaft. When we make our own windmill, it will need to be attached to the shaft so that if the blades spin it has to spin too because it needs to turn the generator."

"But if our shaft spins, then our tail would be spinning all around too and I don't think that would work."

"Look! They spin different directions."

"Why do you suppose that is? They face the same direction."

"I think it is the way the blades are slanted. If the wind blows [demonstrates wind with her hand] like this, it will hit these blades and push them this direction. But if the wind comes and pushes these blades, they are slanted the other direction, so the wind will push them that way."



Lunch Duty

I was on lunch duty today.

Sometimes I don't always hear the things I expect to hear at lunch.

Today it was, "I figured out how we can get energy from flowers. I'm serious!! You wanna know how? Well yesterday I was eating honey and I realized that honey gets its energy from nectar collected by bees. The nectar gets its energy from the flower, which gets its energy from the sun, which gets its energy from hyperactive gas.."

 I have come to a realization that there is no way I can "teach" these children everything about energy. I've long since dropped the idea of "covering" the whole entire topic and tried instead to light the flame of curiosity. It is thrilling to watch as even lunch turns into science class.

Researching Windmills

We have intentions of building a windmill that lights a small light bulb.

In order to provide a common, concrete experience with a windmill, our amazing friend, Pippin, brought us a windmill to put up just outside of our classroom. Now instead of people talking about that one windmill they saw that one time on that one family trip, the children can talk about our windmill. Everyone will know exactly what we are talking about.

One question that came up in our previous planning session really stuck with us and had us stumped. The wind doesn't always blow the same direction. We think our windmill should be able to move so that it can face whichever way the wind blows. But how should it move? Should people move it? What if we aren't at school when it changes directions? Do we just loose all of that good wind?

 There is no better teacher than experience. So we set to work to put up a windmill that we could study, to answer our question and help us think further about our own plans.

 There was lots of measuring to which one students commented, "I just thought Pippin was a builder guy. I didn't know he was a mathematician too!"

 As Pippin pounded the wooden stakes into the ground, the children were fascinated by the vibration they could feel in the ground. They would try to see just how far away they could stand and still feel it.

 They were also intrigued that they could feel the vibration while standing on the benches.

Of course, other classes that see the windmill stop by to see what is going on. Unfortunately, there wasn't much wind the first day we put it up.

 The next day was much windier. The children were thrilled to see that the windmill was facing a different direction and spinning vigorously as they pulled up in their cars to get dropped off for school. Some even rolled down their windows to cheer. They spent the first moments of the school day observing. What did they notice? What might help us when we build our own windmill?

"Which ever way the wind is blowing the windmill turns to face. All that air hits the panel in the back and it turns it, like opening a door. First is faces that way [demonstrates with his hands] now it is facing this way."

"But where should we put the tail on our windmill? Should we put it behind the generator or in front of the generator? Because that one doesn't have a generator like ours will."

"When it does spin to face the wind, the pole it sits on doesn't spin. There is a part that fits inside the pole that moves."

One student even tried to get the windmill he had created, in the studio with Anna, to spin in the wind alongside the research windmill.

It was fun to be in our room the next day to hear other classes run by on their way to PE shouting, "It's spinning! It's Spinning! Look!"I wonder what brain seeds it might be planting for the other children at Sabot.

Every good school needs a Pippin!!