We are featuring a post from guest blogger, Kelly Price.  Kelly is the GSTA Director for the 2012-13 year. She has been a member of the GSTA board for many years serving in the roles of District II Director, Secretary, and President. Kelly  has also served a three year term on the NSTA Council as the District V Director. 
Membership management can be a huge task for any club or group.  For the Georgia Science Teachers Association, we had passed on the task of “spreadsheet monitor” of the membership lists for many years before we found a transformational resource to help us.
The transformation began with a hard look at the core tasks of the organization in May 2011.  We decided to simplify our target activities instead of expending time in so many different traditional committees and chores.  Our focus became the electronic newsletter, the GSTA website and the annual GSTA conference.
A task force did a formal review of the GSTA website and determined that a complete redesign was in order. GSTA was paying at least $2000 per year for a webmaster to update the website in a timely manner as directed by the GSTA board.  The new redesign was not part of the original contract with the webmaster and would result in an additional cost of at least $5000.  With that news we started to brainstorm a different solution.
At the 2011 National Congress for Science Education in Baltimore, I remembered a session about membership management where different solutions were shared.  I found my notes from the session and started researching to see if one of them might suit our needs.  From that point forward, I have been a raving fan of Wild Apricot (www.wildapricot.com).  This was one of the membership management systems included in the presentation and it is amazing.  Not only does it serve as our membership management system, but our website too!  We can go in and update our site on the spot and it also does event registration.  We found an all-in-one solution to meet our needs! Within a 48 hour period, the leader of our website task force had created a brand new website for GSTA.  We already owned our URL address — it took a few more days to transfer to our new website using our recognizable URL.  Check it out,  www.georgiascienceteacher.org.
This new membership management system allowed us to import our old-style spreadsheet to populate our membership list.  You can easily create a “members only“ section. It automatically generates invoices, reminders about membership renewal and so much more.  We are certainly still learning about all of the attributes the system offers.  The webpage building process is extremely easy and there are lots of themes and formats to choose from.
Credit card processing for the GSTA annual conference has been another opportunity for growth and we are researching the different credit card processing options available.  Even with the credit card processing learning curve, we are now using a membership management system that also serves as our GSTA website platform and manages conference registrations.
All that for just over $1000 in subscription cost per year.  We really got a bargain!
Kelly Price, GSTA Director 2012-2013

The USA Science and Engineering Festival had something for everyone this weekend—information, experiences, fun and challenges for scientists young and old.
I learned about the senses through the “Science of Our Senses” exhibit activities by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. By smelling, people can have different perceptions of the same compound, that is, things may not smell the same to different people. Data was collected by age and intensity of the perceived smell on the Smell Board to see if any trends developed. Listening to a “Shepard Tone” sounds like it’s rising endlessly because our brain doesn’t notice that other rising tones come up from the depths to take our focus away from the tone that rose out of our hearing range. The sense of touch activity involved identifying shapes by touch. The sense of sight was illustrated by optical illusions. 
The National Science Teachers Association tables had a steady stream of visitors making soda straw rockets, a sense of touch materials science challenge, a center-of-gravity activity to balance a butterfly, a loop plane (see page 48), as well as an activity involving a hairdryer blowing toilet paper and one with a big jar of cheese balls (your guess is as good as mine, I wish I had participated!).
The volunteers staffing a National Institute of Health booth were using models to teach about the structure of the human brain. Visitors lined up to look through a window into the Crew Module of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. And Ms Frizzle brought the Magic School Bus to the Festival.
It was wonderful to see so many families spending time together learning, and to meet teachers who came from places like NYC and California just for the Festival.
Next year I hope to go both days.
Peggy

Every month, our colleague Ken Roy shares important information about safety in the science classrooms and laboratories. His columns appear in Science Scope and The Science Teacher. These are “must-reads” for science teachers, and NSTA members can access articles in both of these online, regardless of which journal you receive in print. The information can and should be shared with administrators and discussed at faculty meetings.
Usually his column in each journal is different, but I noticed in the April/May editions OSHA’s Newest Lab Resource was discussed in both columns: Science Scope’s Scope on Safety and The Science Teacher’s Safer Science.
Ken describes this latest resource, the publication Laboratory Safety Guidance, which can be read online or downloaded as a PDF at no cost. According to Ken this document is “intended to help science teachers and their supervisors maintain safer, healthier laboratories and ensure that applicable health, safety, and environmental regulations are followed.” The booklet summarizes applicable OSHA standards for laboratory workers and focuses on chemical hazards, biological hazards, and safety hazards. OSHA’s Laboratories site also has links to fact sheets and other information.
Publications such as NSTA’s Exploring Safely (elementary), Inquiring Safely (middle school), and Investigating Safely (high school) also have a wealth of practical, relevant information and should be in your school or personal library–read about them at the NSTA Press site. NSTA also has position papers related to student lab work and safety and a Safety in the Science Classroom Portal. And if you search for “safety” and your grade level in NSTA’s SciLinks, you can access even more resources and information. Let’s be careful out there!

The Early Years blog will broaden its voice by having occasional guest bloggers. Marie Faust Evitt joins us today. She is the head teacher of a preschool class for four- and five-year-olds, and leads an “Adventure Day” class in Mountain View, California. She has written for newspapers and journals* and is the author of Thinking Big, Learning Big, a book of science activities aligned with national standards in literacy, math, and science. She posts wonderful photographs and writes about her classroom activities on Facebook. *A Web of Learning, Science & Children September 2011 
Spring is in full bloom here in the San Francisco Bay Area. I’ve discovered that when I’m out walking with my nature fieldtrip class the children are much more excited about seeing wildflowers when they are looking for a few specific flowers as if it were a treasure hunt. And they are quicker to notice the flowers if we have talked about the flower names ahead of time and come up with, gestures to remember them.
For example, Pacific hound’s tongue is an early woodland flower with delicate blue flowers. The name comes from two characteristics – the leaves look like a dog’s tongue hanging out, and the seed pods look like the surface of a tongue. I tell the children that when we see hound’s tongue we’ll stick out our tongues and pant like a dog. We all look silly, and they remember the name of the plant.
We remember trillium by holding up three fingers because trillium has three big leaves and three magenta petals, like a tricycle has three wheels. (Click on the photos to see the larger photographs.)

These gestures help me remember the names of the California flowers myself since I grew up in Connecticut with buttercups and Queen Anne’s lace. I had learned to recognize buttercups by the old saying that if you held the flower under your chin on a sunny day and your chin showed a yellow reflection it meant you like butter. Folklore, yes, but I remembered the name of that cheerful yellow flower when I saw it again here, years later. It was like greeting an old friend! Buttercups!! I just discovered the science behind the lore.
As beautiful as the wildflowers are, we have the rule that during class we don’t pick any flowers so they can go to seed and make food for the wildlife and new flowers for the next year. Know your students—if you have any concerns that a particularly curious child might taste one of the flowers, talk about the “No Taste” rule too and stay close to that child. Check this site to learn more about your local wildflowers http://wildflowerinformation.org/.
Reading books about wildflowers adds to the learning. My preschoolers like hearing The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush by Tommie de Paulo and Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. Elemenatry school children will enjoy Miss Lady Bird’s Wildflowers by Kathi Appelt, the story of Lady Bird Johnson’s love of wildflowers.
Happy spring! Marie Faust Evitt

We didn’t have enough wire so we re-used cardboard tubes, empty boxes, egg cartons, and plastic jar lids to create toys called “Galimotos” in the Malawian children’s tradition as recounted in the children’s book, Galimoto by Karen Lynn Williams and illustrated by Catherine Stock. Galimoto means “car” in Chichewa, the national language of Malawi and many, but not all, of our creations were vehicles. The small group of kindergarten and first grade girls drew their designs and then built their own toy to take home in a one hour library sponsored program.
A third grade lesson plan (with additional links) from LEARN NC from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill describes this activity as an “opportunity to engage in creative self-expression by designing and creating wire sculptures.”  It is also an opportunity to understand the iterative practices of engineering—a cycle of ask, imagine, plan, create, improve, ask, imagine….See the Engineering Is Elementary website for more details of this process.
Some of the problems the children had to solve were how to attach wheels, balancing the vehicle to keep it upright, and holding the pieces together. These significant challenges did not discourage the young engineers who tried alternative designs or accepted their work with its limitations.
I’d also like to read Lorato and her Wire Car by Botswanian author Lauri Kubuitsile. It won the Golden Baobab Prize Best Story for ages 8-11 years in 2009. It is published by Vivlia Publishers. Can you think of any other books that tell of children designing and building something out of found materials?
An hour-long program just isn’t enough time to create a toy that works satisfactorily. I hope the children will continue to design and improve, imagine and create, until they are happy with their designs.
Peggy

What’s small and round, made of vulcanized rubber, and kept in the freezer before you play with it? That’s right—a grenade! Or at least that’s what NHL players call a loose puck as it bounces on the ice. This installment of the Science of NHL Hockey, produced by NBC Learn in partnership with NSF and NSTA, explores the crazy collisions of pucks with practically everything in the rink.

Why are pucks frozen? For the same reason the goalie is padded from head to toe—to reduce elasticity and stifle the puck’s reaction during a collision. The less the puck deforms, the less of the pucks’ energy of motion converted to some other form of energy slowing it down, and the colder it is, the faster it’ll scream across the ice.

If your students haven’t yet watched Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, consider showing that one first to refresh students’ memories of why objects move as they do. Then focus in on how the changing force of the stick can cause the puck to gently glide across the ice or shoot towards the net at speeds of 90 mph (about 150 kph) or more!

—Judy Elgin Jensen

Image courtesy of Kim Faires

Video: In “Force, Impulse & Collisions,” NSF experts explain the motion of the puck as it careens around the rink.

Middle school lesson: In this lesson, students will relate impulse and momentum and explore elastic and inelastic collisions.

High school lesson: In this lesson, students will explore impulses and investigate momentum and energy transfer in elastic and inelastic collisions.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]

My principal just asked me to be the science department chair for next year. I’d like to change the format of our professional development (PD) days and the once-a-month afterschool meetings to do some PD or other departmental projects.
—Melanie, Indiana
We teachers complain we have no opportunity to collaborate, yet if we’re not careful, faculty meetings become gripe and gossip sessions. I once worked with a chairperson who began each meeting with “I don’t have anything to talk about, but the contract says we have to be here until 4:30.” He would read some announcements aloud and then grade papers. Needless to say, not much was accomplished during those meetings, and he did not last long in that position. I’m glad to hear you want to facilitate something more productive.
For your monthly meetings, you can send out an agenda a few days in advance with a copy to the principal. The agenda should reflect issues of importance to science teachers or the district (e.g., safety, grading policies, instructional strategies, technology, inventories, parent communications, and assessments). Use e-mail or an attachment to the agenda to communicate information items so the meeting time can be spent more productively. Rather than a bulleted list of items to address, phrase them as questions for your colleagues to discuss. For example, instead of “Safety,” ask, “What do you do to ensure students work safely in your lab?” Set aside a few minutes to recognize new issues or other concerns. Celebrate any successes or accomplishments, too, and some munchies might be appreciated at the end of a long day.

I know of some schools where the teachers hold book groups at faculty meetings. If this would not work with your time constraints, you could distribute journal articles (such as those in NSTA’s publications) or video segments ahead of time for discussion during the meetings. Initially, you might have to prepare some conversation-starters. Perhaps teachers will eventually suggest articles or topics of interest.
You could also rotate the location of the meetings, asking a different teacher each month to “host” the meeting in his/her lab. The host would describe some of the student activities, and the other teachers have a chance to learn more about what happens in other classrooms. It might be possible to have a combined meeting with another department to discuss common interests or questions.
Occasionally, you could set up a virtual meeting using Skype (or a similar program) to interact with a scientist, museum curator, or other resource person.
I once worked with a social studies department chairperson who came up with an effective PD project. After getting administration approval, he arranged for the teachers to tour a historic site during the summer. The teachers rented a van and traveled together. A docent gave them a comprehensive behind-the-scenes tour, and they had the opportunity to handle and examine some artifacts and documents up close, with the guidance and insights of a professional curator/historian. They had lunch in a historic tavern, took lots of pictures, and during the ride home discussed how what they learned applied to their teaching. Each teacher submitted a written summary of the day. The teachers did this on their own time and at their own expense, and in return, they were excused from a PD day in October. It was a win-win situation: the teachers had a content-focused learning day, there was no expense for the district, and the teachers had a “day off” during the school year. This became a model for other departments: I once spent a day studying plate tectonics with colleagues at a natural history museum and another day with the state fish commission as they studied fish populations.
As a new chairperson, you may encounter some resistance from teachers used to the status quo. Being expected to participate in discussions or group activities may take some getting used to on their part. If meetings in previous years were seen as a waste of time, you may have to be persistent to let people know that things are going to be different.
Perhaps our colleagues would like to share comments about their challenges and successes as department chairs. Good luck!
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsbrennan/4222955364/

The Eco-Wind Generator is a fun little gadget that middle to high school age students can put together relatively easily and get a decent amount of qualitative data about its performance. It has the ability to be used in inquiry and engineering projects for several different science topics. This may be a good option for a project for a group or partners. I had an eighth-grade student put the wind generator together following the instructions, without any assistance. The student was able to put it together with ease in about 20 minutes (it may take longer for students who are not proficient at reading instructions or have little building experience). The light attached to the motor is a good way for students to qualitatively see how well their generator is functioning, though using a multimeter will show the data more quantitatively. The generator is open for engineering inquiry, with the ability for students to create their own blades (changing shapes, materials, etc) to see how those change the intensity of the light and/or the voltage. In addition, it can be used to demonstrate other topics (according to the idea section of the instructions), though those may depend on students’ welding skills. Students must be very specific in their placement of the motor and the creation of the blades, otherwise the generator will not work correctly. Small misplacements can cause the blades to hit the base. If students have already hot glued it incorrectly, they can damage the top of the base when trying to remove the motor to re-glue it. The blades can also be bent in the wrong way irreparably, though card stock paper can be used to replace the blades. Using materials other than hot glue, tape for example, will not work. The structure will not be stable and will have a tendency to lean since the motor is heavy. You also have to be sure to put on enough hot glue to ensure stability. Be careful when using the hot glue gun, however, that you don’t r uin the sleek design of the generator. Hot glue can leave little “spider web trails” everywhere, which can reduce the generator’s efficiency if the “trails” get on the moving parts of the motor. This product is easy to use and would work well with a class of students (about two students per kit) as a building project. Students should be able to build this kit with minimal oversight if they take care during building and review the instructions before beginning construction. To make the kit even more useful to the classroom teacher, it would have been nice if Pitsco had included some basic information about how the motor functions, the difference between voltage and amperage, and a list of resources related to wind-generated power. Lesson plans are available at http://shop.pitsco.com/activities/ section.aspx?CategoryID=70.

In years past, science teachers toiled with old-fashioned rocket construction projects and cringed at the idea of students burning their fingers upon the ignition of the burning engines. Subsequently, today’s science teachers are looking for safe and efficient ways to demonstrate rocket propulsion. As a possible solution for today’s teachers, the Aquapod from Great American Products presents teachers with a device that demonstrates rocket propulsion using the apparatus, a bicycle pump, water, and an empty two-liter bottle.
The two-liter bottle works like a balloon in that air injected from the bicycle pump pressurizes the bottle. Once the bottle is pressurized, a string is pulled to release the bottle from the launch platform. As air leaves the bottle, a force accompanied by an equal-and-opposite reaction force (Newton’s third law of motion) propels the rocket in the air. Hence, increasing the pressure inside the bottle creates increased thrust since the air inside the bottle escapes rapidly (Newton’s second law of motion). Also, adding water to the bottle (1/3 of the bottle) increases the action force. This is because the water is ejected from the bottle before the air, which makes the rocket propel nearly 100 feet if the conditions are right.
Included with the Aquapod are written maintenance and operating instructions that will help maximize the life and safe use of the rocket launcher. As a suggestion, make sure that you read these instructions for a successful launch. Undoubtedly, it is important to adhere to the instructions (e.g., “Fill the bottle to be launched with water to about 1/3 its capacity”). Otherwise, the rocket will not soar anywhere near the advertised altitude of 100 feet. In addition, we found that the tire pump that was used needed to be pumped at least 15 times to maximize the pressure to arm the rocket. The device appears reliable and is durable. If used properly, it should provide exciting demonstrations of force and motion for several years.

Photo of Washington Capitals forward Keith Aucoin (#23) collision with Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nikolai Kulemin (#41)

Is this your first look at the Science of NHL Hockey? Welcome! This installment focuses on Newton’s laws of motion. It’s just one of series of ten video-lesson plan packages developed by NBC Learn in partnership with NSF and NSTA.

What’s your fall-back position for helping students visualize Newton’s laws? Looking for something punchy that will really grab students’ attention? Give this lesson package a try. Colliding hockey players and pucks sailing across the ice give students a new way to look at how Newton’s laws govern the motion of everything!

Consider showing the Science of NHL Hockey video Kinematics as a “bell-ringer” activity to remind students of the basic components of motion. Then delve into Newton’s Three Laws of Motion, where the action will bring Newton’s laws to life.

—Judy Elgin Jensen

Image courtesy of Clyde Caplan

Video: In “Newton’s Three Laws of Motion,” NHL players sprint down the ice and crash into one another while scientists explain how Newton’s laws tell you exactly what is happening.

Middle school lesson: In this lesson, students use a Newton’s cradle, hockey pucks, and more to construct their own demonstrations of Newton’s laws of motion.

High school lesson: In this lesson, students use skateboards and other materials to develop their own demonstrations of Newton’s laws of motions.

You can use the following form to e-mail us edited versions of the lesson plans:

[contact-form 2 “ChemNow]