Week 13- Atoms

 What question are we investigating?

For the thirteenth week of Science Methods I, we would continue with the question: “How can we support elementary students in learning about matter and its interactions?”. We also would look at the question “How can we use a particle model to explain matter interaction?” We did this in small groups investigating how M&M’s would have differences based on factors like temperature or sugar in the water. Then we would talk in a whole group about the different results we got from it to see if there were any similarities or differences for it. This would help in lecture where we talked about atoms and diffusion. 

 

What did we do in lab to investigate this question?

The teacher explained by asking what everyone thought about when they heard the word “model”. In small groups we would create models of different substances with different densities. This would help us to go into the longest part we participated during the class in small groups which was investigating M&M’s. We first started out by picking the way we wanted to test which certain colors spread faster than others for the M&M’s. My small group would pick to measure out 2 cm’s on plates before putting the water into it. Then we would set a timer for each M&M and stop the timer when it got to two lines for the 2 cm’s we did. The red would be the fastest and the blue would be the next fastest. After this we would pick if we wanted to change the temperature or put sugar into the water. My small group would pick to put sugar into the water. We would do the same thing as the first investigation to see the differences or similarities between the colors. The results would be different by having orange as the fastest and green would be the next fastest. We would go back in a whole group and see the similarities or differences that people had based on their results. The teacher also talked about different factors that could have affected the results like not measuring the water or having different plate sizes.

What did we figure out?

Another important part would be in the lecture and talking about atoms. This would start out by doing a probe and asking which parts you would be able to do with the sugar in the water. One part we talked about in small groups first was if you’re able to separate sugar and water out when mixed together. We would learn as a whole group that you are able to separate both of them out. Then the teacher would go into explaining a particle model for density and showing that with lower density they are spaced out more compared to the higher density that are closer together. He would ask how someone would show atoms to students and explain the importance of showing this evidence to the students in the classroom. He would show different models and ask how you would explain this to students. He then would talk about Rutherford and how we investigated how the particles did with the gold foil and learn that most of them went through it while some of them would reflect back. He said this would be a great example to show the students in your classroom to talk about atoms. Lastly, we would do modeling diffusion 1 and 2 to see how it shows what happens for atoms.

 

What are new or remaining questions after the investigation? 

This lab taught me about the different ways of thinking of atoms and how to think about explaining it to my future students. The reading also would help me to learn more about this concept from this part in the class. This would be done through talking about atoms in motion. It would give an example of dropping red dye into water and how it shows that atoms are constantly in motion. This would help me to learn more about the simulations we did in class with the explanations. It would give me a clearer understanding of what was happening within the simulations.