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| Lapland University |
Lapland University
Workshop on “From Education to Schools”.
This workshop was for teachers on how to motivate students to engage on research
based learning.
It was organized by Luma Center at the Lapland University.
The workshop started with the brief introduction to Luma activities. Many of the teachers, especially pre-school and elementary teachers had no idea about the resources the center provides.
After the intro, we learned 4 fun activities that I can easily modify to my classes in Environmental Science and Biology.
The first one was microbiology. The
instructor had filled perti-dishes ahead of time with agar.
Apparently you can buy agar from a
pharmacy.
The dish is divided into four
sections and the first square got unwashed finger prints from a finger.
The second square got a fingerprint after the finger was dipped in plain water.
The
third one after washing with water mixed with liquid detergent and in the fourth one, the finger was washed again with detergent and then dried with a paper tower.
Then we predicted which fingerprint would
have the most bacteria.
It turns out the
the one that was washed with soap and water and not dried should have the most bacteria
because all the dead cells with bacteria should still be in the drop of soapy
water.
The second experiment: We got a dish filled with corn starch and
were allowed to touch it. This simulated
the surface of a planet that we were supposed to send people. We had several items to choose from to build
the spaceship and it was supposed to be also able to get off the planet and
come back to earth. We got to work
immediately. Then once built we had to
explain the choses we made, how it’s going to land on the surface and how it’s
going to get off the surface.
Third experiment: Question: Can you escape from jail using
toilet paper. Each group got the same
length of paper and we had to figure out how to make the longest and strongest
rope. Well, our group won in the length
but it untwisted and broke pretty early The one that was done by twisting the paper
and allowing it to recoil, was the best.
Fourth experiment: Bucket of blue water. Build a boar from aluminum foil, fill with
little of cooking oil. Oil spill. How do
you contain the oi so it does not spread?
Material are listed in the handout we received.
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| Modeling |
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| Testing the ropes, the best |
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| Ols spill experiment |
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| Oil spill experiment |
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| Landing on the planet |
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| Materials or the space ship |
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| Measuring the lengths of the Ropes |
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| Modeling |
