Sunday, February 12, 2017

Yes, Science Is Still Happening!

A collection of photos to highlight some of the things happening in the APIS Biology classroom recently. I know the blurred faces are creepy, but it's a school policy when sharing pictures of students...

LEGO League in Seoul! We weren't quick enough to get registered for the official competition this year, but the kids made up their own obstacle course. They're currently programming the robot just as they would if they were competing and will share their work at the school's International Fair at the end of March. The student in the back is my 12 year-old son, Egen, so no face-blurring required, which is awesome because I love the fact that I caught him mid-laugh.

Cell membrane bubble model. I really love this activity, not only because the students enjoy it so much, but also because they truly understand membranes better afterwards. I had them write a model evaluation after the activity, and the amount of learning they exhibited was astounding.

Building water filters in Environmental Science. This was their first engineering challenge of the year. The activity I based it on had restraints in material usage and cost, and the student teams all took different approaches to those constraints.

Another favorite: The sinking leaf disk assay. The students all perform the protocol the same way once, and then choose their own variables. This year, I asked them to write a scientific argument for their results and create mini-posters. There was much deep thinking when they started working on the Reasoning section of their arguments, trying to understand and explain their results. They also did some pretty sophisticated statistical analysis with the data this year.