Chemistry, Rockets, and Snow Machining

Until this morning I wasn't at all sure if I'd be teaching today, much less what I'd teach.

Andy worked on some basic geometry and pre-algebra with the group 3 kids during 1st period, and they had a great time; so I was motivated to come up with something for the afternoon! All of the students have been learning some basic chemistry, so I came up with a little review of matter, atoms, subatomic particles (mmmm), and elements to do today.

I ended up lecturing to the Group 3 students, constantly asking them questions, most of which they were able to answer. I made little "Basic Chemistry" notebooks for them from copier paper, and I required that they copy down several key definitions and sketches. At the end of the class I held up one dish of baking soda and one of vinegar; then challenged students to figure out what the mystery chemicals were. Many of them guessed correctly, so I asked them to come up with a way to test it. Everyone agreed we should mix them together. I took a student volunteer to mix, and presto: chemical reaction. I then explained the reaction, what the bubble were, and told them what we'd be doing for the rest of the week - making baking soda and vinegar powered bottle rockets!

For Group One I presented most of the same material, although a little simplified, except instead of only lecturing I had them take turns reading aloud from the text book. They were still required to write key term definitions and sketches in their newly acquired chemistry notebooks. At the end of class I conducted the same inquiry demonstration and told the class about the bottle rockets.

The classes went pretty well, although some of the kids were a little bored. But they needed to know the root chemistry before we moved on to the bottle rockets!

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After school Andy and I walked to the other village store store we hadn't been to yet, got some soda and peanuts, then returned to the school for a while. I'll admit here I took a short nap!

Jason, the school principal brought us homemade pizza for dinner again. After dinner Jason, his 5yr old son, his dog, and I went for a 1hr snow machine ride. Working with the students here is great, but the ride was certainly the best part of my day! We rode across the Yukon from the village then several miles down a trail to some tundra in the middle of nowhere about 10 miles from the village. It was dead quiet, and the view of the hills to the north was astounding! I got to ride very fast up another river for a few miles, too, so much fun!

Sorry, no new photos today. But who knows what tomorrow will bring :-)