Chernoff Faces

I learned a lot from doing the Chernoff faces. It was really interesting to see how quickly everyone's faces changed and no one had the exact same looking face. This is the same as classification of living things because everything starts off in the same general group, but after breaking the groups down into specific categories everything becomes separated. After we drew our faces we grouped up into different categories based on our preferences. I liked seeing people that are similar to me and that liked the same things as me. We grouped up based on where we lived, or majors, and our favorite type of food.
I enjoyed doing this activity and think it would be great to use in a classroom for kids to understand classification. I liked how the categories were based on things we liked because I think that would keep kids interested and having fun.

Dangers of DHMO

Before I watched the video on the Dangers of DHMO I already knew that they were talking about water. In the 9th grade my physical science teacher gave us the exact same information and had everyone in the class convinced and signing a petition to have it banned. He didn't tell us until the end of the hour that it was actually water that we were wanting to ban. After I found out that DHMO was water I read through all the facts again and it all made sense, but it didn't make sense to ban it anymore because it's water.

 That day I learned not to fall for something until I have heard all of the facts. I should have been asking questions and I should have asked him to tell me a few good things about DHMO, and hopefully with that information I could have figured out if it is something that I really wanted to ban or not. 

This helped me in the future because I began asking more questions and figuring out what I really believed and wanted to believe. It also helped me in tough situations where people want me to sign a petition for them and I don't really want to right away. Instead of signing it, I ask questions and tell them I will look deeper into during my own time, and after I look into it then I would make the decision.

Inquiry Wheel

After learning about the inquiry wheel I liked it a lot more than the typical scientific method approach. I really liked how everything goes back to asking questions. Being told to do a project that you can only have one question to limits the project. It limits the students from furthering research and really finding out information. To reiterate questions being important, the picture shows questions being the main portion of the diagram.
I remember doing the typical scientific method in grade school for a science fair project. Half way through the projects I would notice something I didn't think would happen, but I would have to stick to my original plan because that was what the question was and what the results had to show.
I had never heard of the inquiry wheel until this class and I plan on using it in my classroom because I think it will give my students the best results and get them the most interested in what they are studying and learning about.

Whats Alive

Before we looked at the different items we were going to put in the baggy we went over what we thought what living things are and what they need to survive.
Seeing all the different things that we had to put in the bag was interesting, because when I first looked at the items, some were obvious to me as to which were alive or not alive, but then we were asked which ones are dead but once were living and then we had to really think about that. The paper towel that was damp from water was not living, but at one point it was alive as a tree. This is the same as the toothpick, which comes from a tree.
After a week we opened the bag and it was cool to see the seeds actually sprouted and made little plants. Ours didn't grow very big, but other groups had seeds that grew pretty big. This also made it apparent as to which of the items were actually alive, which was the beans, kernels, and seeds.