The Importance of Careful Measurements

The Grade 3 the students start the year learning how to make a range of careful measurements .  They measure solids and liquids using a range of tools to measure properties from linear to volume and temperature.  These kinds of practices are the foundation to building a real data set from which the class can begin to trace the actual patterns of the world.  They are also fun.

 It is fun to measure the temperature is on a foggy day.

And it is a chance to get to use new and interesting tools such as graduated cylinders.

All this attention to careful and accurate measuring has made me think about a couple of recent stories about some remarkable and very precise measurements that have been in the news recently.  The annual announcements about the Nobel prizes have just come out.   This year the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists who developed new ways to study individual quantum particles without damaging them.

Did you know that one of the two scientists, the American scientist Dr. David Wineland, works at the National Institute of Standards and Technology?  I didn't even know we had a national center for standards! - but of course, it makes sense. We need one.  When I read the article in the New York Times  - I knew that I had to share this announcement with the Grade 3 students.  Recently we have been discussing why it might be important to have a standard unit of measure.

Here is what the New York Times had to say about Dr. Wineland's research "Dr. Wineland said that much of the motivation for his work over the years came from the need for better and better clocks. 'Historically,' he said in an interview with the Nobel committee, 'when we have better clocks, we have better navigation.' "

"Dr. Wineland’s work has focused on the material side of where matter meets light. His prize is the fourth Nobel awarded to a scientist associated with the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the past 15 years for work involving the trapping and measuring of atoms. Dr. Wineland and his colleagues trap charged beryllium atoms, or ions, in an electric field and cool them with specially tuned lasers so that they are barely moving, which is another way of saying they are very, very cold.

NIST physicist and Nobel Prize-winner David Wineland adjusts an ultraviolet laser beam used to manipulate ions in a high-vacuum apparatus containing an "ion trap." These devices have been used to demonstrate the basic operations required for a quantum computer.

 The photo above is from a great blog post from NPR

"Some of the measurements may be a bit hard to wrap your head around, but for even the most seemingly useless measurement, there's a practical use.

That's where the really precise clock comes into play. Ever wonder how GPS works?

'The fact that they have highly accurate and synchronized clocks on board [the satellites] is the crux of how GPS works,' says Andrew Novick, an electrical engineer at NIST.

'If they were off by hundreds of nanoseconds from each other then the whole thing would fall apart,' he says.

If you are wondering about the elementary science curriculum we are using -   many of the lesson plans are based on the FOSS Measurement curriculum module -(which is also a great resource for math lessons for Grades 3 and 4 as well) - of course our measurements not only take place in the science room but we do lots of measuring outdoors as well.

As we are learning more about the types and names of plants in our observation area it is also important to include scale on our notebook drawings.

Most recently students are learning how to measure liquids using metric units for volume and capacity.

Accurate measurements is a team effort because it is important to check and double check each measurement before the recorder writes it down on the data sheet.

It is important to get down level with the liquid to make sure the reading is correct.

In addition, first thing every morning the Meteorologists in Grade 3 are also outside taking careful and accurate weather data including the temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius - but more about that in an upcoming post.....

An Unusual Author Visit and a Well-Deserved Award

Jacqueline Barber - Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley

We are very fortunate at the American School in London–  every year we have several wonderful children’s book authors come for a visit.   (One of my favorites was Kate DiCamillo – author of the wonderful book Because of Winn-Dixie).

But recently, we had a rather unusual author visiting in the Lower School.  For one thing this person was the author of non-fiction books.   Jacqueline Barber has written include a number of science books which are part of the reading for the 2^nd grade science unit called Designing Mixtures   One of these books is called Jess Makes Hair Gel and it is often one of the students' favorites.  (You can read a description of the book in the early post titled Building Smart Students).

As a result, many of the Grade 3 students were familiar with her books when Jacquey Barber came to ASL for a visit a few weeks ago.  She was able to spend time with both  John O’Toole and Jenna Laslocky’s classes.  She spent some of the time discussing her books and answering questions from the students and then she helped them as they continued making their observations and measurements of the weather and the plants and insects in the Lower School courtyard. 

But, writing cool children's science books is only a very small part of her job.  Most of the time she is busy managing a large curriculum research and development group because she is the Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of its Curriculum Center.  So, having her visit for a day was a very unique opportunity.  This rare chance to spend time with her was only possible because Jacquey was on her way back to San Francisco traveling back from the conference of the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) which was held this fall in Holland.

At the conference she was awarded an “Eddie”!  So we were able to celebrate a very well deserved award with her.

"The International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE) recently announced the winner of the organization’s fifth annual design awards, known as “the Eddies,” to recognize excellence in design of educational products and materials in science or mathematics. The 2012 award winner and recipient of a $10,000 prize is Jacqueline Barber, Associate Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, for  leadership of the design of Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading. Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading is a curriculum developed through a rigorous process to produce innovative materials with great demonstrated impact on students, teachers, and educational designers around the world."

You can read the whole announcement here.

Shape of Life in Art and Science

Recently, one of the Grade 4 science classes had a wonderful opportunity to go up to the high school and visit with one of Jenny Thomas'  art classes.   

It all started with an email message that I received from Jenny Thomas in the high school art department.  She wrote "Jodi Warren was showing some prospective parents through the art studios today and noticed I had dozens of jars of preserved animals from the science department in the classroom for students to draw. In fact we are doing huge, A1 size wax and ink drawings. She told me about the spider drawings you were doing with your grade 4 class and I got quite excited that just by chance we might try to do some kind of sharing activity or even just an observation with our high school and lower school children."

We are at a very exciting time at the moment, with students adding coloured inks to the wax crayon and watching the wax repel the liquid whilst making the huge drawings come alive."

I wrote her back immediately and said that I would love to bring my students up to visit her class. "We are focused on invertebrates at the moment - both molluscs and arthropods (insects/spiders vs. snails) - so they would be very interested in learning about how you and your students are using symmetry in your work - as well as the techniques that you are using in your wax/ink drawings."

So, the next morning we went up to visit and see what was happening in HS art.   We discovered that Ms. Thomas' students were closely observing several of the same animals that we had been studying in the last month.   We had a wonderful time and we are hoping that we can have some more visits in the coming months.  We would love to have the HS art students come down to our lower school science room and help us observe and draw some of the animals we have been studying.   The lower school science room has most of live critters in the school so we have a great resource to share with the art students as well.