During today’s lesson we were building hot and cold houses. The students were given two cardboard houses and the following materials to choose from: cotton balls, newspaper, black construction paper, cloth, socks, and roofs (reflective, clear, or tinted). The students were to decide what they needed to insulate a house (cool house) and what they needed to absorb energy (hot house). Before starting the lab the students read the activity and defined the terms : absorb, reflect and transmit. During hour 2 and 3 Mrs. Ash asked the class to define the terms in their own words. However during hour 4, she asked them to define it using the book’s definition and provide examples. Mrs. Ash explained to me that 4th hour can be challenging because a few of the students are fast learners and a few are level 1. To counterbalance the range she changes up her delivery of the lesson for that class. Some students described “absorb” as to capture, take in or collect. One student said, “hostaging energy?” During 2nd period lots of students had insulated materials in both houses or they chose a tinted roof and covered it with a clear roof. I don't think they understood the activity or they didn’t understand the main picture. So the flaw could be in the directions, maybe we need to clarify that one house need to remain cool the other needs to be heated. Maybe we should provide the students with more context such as a scenario, to give them some reasoning/purpose to create their houses. During 3rd period while the students were making their houses I circulated the room and knew exactly what to look for. I suspected some students would start using multiple roofs, forget to fold down the flap for the thermometer, block the thermometer, forget to record initial temperature, etc. We learned from 2nd period and adjusted accordingly so the data collected would be reasonable and help the students answer the analysis questions.
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