Yesterday I was so caught up in reading both The Reluctant Disciplinarian and I Read It, But I Don't Get It that I completely forgot it was time to start my Salt Crystal Science Experiment. I thought, no big deal, I'll just adjust the start and end dates by one day. I felt I had written out my experiment thoroughly and thought through all of the required materials. Last week I had a rather lengthy discussion about What We Think We Know About Salt with my fellow scientists (my daughters). Earlier on Saturday we had talked about predictions and observations. We'd also talked about the ABC's of scientific drawings A-Accurate, B-Big, C-Colorful. We discussed how we would try to write down everything we thought and observed, even if we weren't sure if it was important to the actual growing of the salt crystals.
I figured it would take us about an hour to set up the experiment and write down our observations, even if they were fairly thorough. Really, we just needed to experience the two kinds of salt again and then put water, salt, and a string in jar. How hard could that be?
I was very excited to try this experiment without knowing much about what would happen. It would be fun to have this new experience alongside my students/fellow scientists. I now firmly believe that you should try every experiment on your own, before you try to teach it in a classroom!
I did not anticipate the time it would take to just figure out how to use the microscope and how important it would be to set behavior expectations for the handling of the microscope, the slides, and anything within a 5 foot or so proximity to the microscope. I also hadn't set up a schedule for who would use the microscope first and for how long. After several minutes of frustrated waiting by two of my scientists, I realized that they could not draw and look in the microscope at the same time. Aha! they could take turns looking into the microscope and spend the majority of the time trying to capture their observations with pencil and paper. I did remember to have them write descriptions as well as draw what they saw. That was important. Although we all looked at exactly the same grains of salt, we had very different illustrations.
I did not know (in fact I still don't) whether or not it is important to have the salt crystals completely dissolve in the jar of water. I'm not even certain it is possible to completely dissolve them, unless the water is heated. The experiment did not mention heating the water, so I didn't. I was impressed with my daugthers' perseverance. They held out longer than I did. I finally said, "Okay, Stop Stirring and Start Writing." We made sure we included the observation that it seemed like it would take forever to make the salt dissolve.
I did not anticipate how difficult it would be for me to tie tiny knots onto the toothpicks. I also should have pre-measured the lengths of string. Luckily only one of my guesses was so far off that it had to be re-done.
At 9:12pm, my fellow scientists were asking if they could please just go to bed. They didn't really think they would write anything very good now anyway because they were so tired.
I did really like the fact that I didn't have all of the answers and could honestly say "I guess we'll just have to wait and find out." But, since you never really know what will happen in a classroom situation, you would be honest saying that even if you'd performed the same experiment for the last 8 years. My children were very forgiving and it is very important to them that I succeed in learning how to be a teacher, so they made this first evening full of missteps very easy on me. I can't imagine that my regular class of 29 second graders would have been as patient and helpful. Maybe I am underestimating them, but I wouldn't want to test it out.
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