The Newsletter for Science
in Motion at Susquehanna University
Volume VII Issue 1 September 2007
Director's Column
The SIM Summer Workshop was held Monday June 11th through Friday June 15th at Susquehanna University. Twenty-three teachers representing sixteen school districts attended the week-long workshop. Monday and Tuesday were spent at SU with teachers working on experiments ranging from Protein Electrophoresis to FTIR of Organic Liquids to Picket Fence Freefall. SU professor Dr. Wade Johnson debuted a new UV-vis experiment titled Beet Red on Monday. Wednesday was spent at Knoebels where teachers performed Amusement Park Physics, Physiology, Water Quality and GPS Scavenger Hunt experiments. Thursday was Crime Scene Day back at SU. Friday we were delighted to have Dr. Ned Ladd, Bucknell University Professor, give a workshop on Astronomy activities. Of course no SIM Summer Workshop would be complete without a Liquid Nitrogen Demonstration ending with liquid nitrogen ice cream!
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| Dr. Courtney Thomas, SIM, and teachers at Knoebels Amusement Park. |
The following week, the SIM-SRBC Water Quality Workshop was held at SU on Monday, June 18th and Tuesday, June 19th. This year nine teachers are participating in the project and seven were able to make it to the workshop. This year’s project participants include Karen Avery, Mary Dahlmann, Sheila Furr, Dana Hock, Joshua Greene, John Hernandez, Greg Laubach, John Slotterback, and Doug VanBrunt. The first workshop day consisted of an introduction for new teachers and summary of last year’s results then training in flow data collection at Penns Creek. The second day consisted of water quality data collection at Penns Creek and discussion of sampling site selection by teachers.
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| Teachers participating in the SIM-SRBC Water Quality Workshop |
I would like to welcome all teachers to begin signing up for SIM visits and equipment drops for the fall semester (through winter break). In the November newsletter, I will announce the date when teachers can begin to sign up for spring semester visits and equipment drops. After you fill in and submit the reservation forms for each requested visit/drop, please contact the MEs to give them a prioritized list of your requests. Our goal is to make certain everyone gets at least one visit/drop before allowing people to sign up for multiple visits/drops.
Starting this fall, we will be collecting assessment data to aid our efforts to secure funding for the SIM program. If you have reserved a classroom visit for one of the SIM experiments we will be assessing, please allow the ME to administer a brief, four-question, multiple choice quiz immediately before and after the experiment. The quiz is anonymous and all quizzes for a particular experiment will be pooled to show pre- and post-quiz data. No information about a particular school, teacher, or student is recorded. We simply hope to show that knowledge is gained through the SIM experiments and funding for the SIM program should be continued. Thank you for your assistance with our efforts.
Monday October 15, 2007, SU-SIM will host a session for the CSIU Common In-Service Day at Susquehanna University. Mike McDevitt will lead sessions on nuclear chemistry, energy in foods, as well as endothermic and exothermic reactions. You can register through the CSIU Web site (www.academypa.org/index.cfm?ProviderID=137) under Science/Environmental Ed. The registration deadline is September 15th.
Just a reminder, the SIM Mole Day Dinner will be held on Tuesday, October 23rd, at Susquehanna University. Invitations will be sent out the first week of October.
I also met with David Broderic, Executive Director of the Senate Education Committee, standing in for State Senator James Rhoades (R-29) later the same day. Mr. Broderic told me he was quite certain Senate Bill 472, to put SIM in the PA School Code (line item in the State budget), would move forward out of the Senate Education Committee this session. If this bill becomes law, it won’t guarantee annual funding for SIM, but we believe it is a step in the right direction.
State Senator Jake Corman (R-34) was also able to meet with me that day. Senator Corman praised the SIM program for making “financial good sense”. While he can’t guarantee funding for the SIM program this year, he does support funding for the program.
Wednesday May 2nd all eleven SIM sites displayed equipment at the Capitol Building to raise awareness of and encourage 2007-2008 funding for the SIM program. Shikellamy students Kay Kocher, Josh Leitzel, Amanda August, Meghan Drumheller, Kristi Getz, Tyson Harvey, Tim Furr, Caleb Ammon, Mike Murphy and teacher Sheila Furr joined SU-SIM for the event. A press conference, arranged by Senator Robert D. Robbins’ (R-50) staff kicked off the day.
Monday May 7th I met with Alycia
Laureti, research analyst for State Representative Mike Hanna
(D-76). She was very interested to learn about the Science in Motion
program since Representative Hanna serves on the House Education Committee.
Madge Schworer, Biology Mobile Educator Says…
Summer 2007 was a productive time
here at Science in Motion. The summer workshop was an exciting week of meeting
new faces, catching up with teachers familiar with SIM, and working through
a number of biology lab offerings. It is always a challenge to provide a workshop
experience for the broad range of experiences that teachers bring to SIM.
I was especially excited by the interaction and sharing of ideas between teachers
this year! Office time in the summer found me working on equipment maintenance
and fine-tuning our SIMventory database that will help us to serve you better
with equipment management. This fall we will begin the pre- and post-testing
on selected labs. These short quizzes can act as a bell ringer activity for
the lab and will provide the Science in Motion program with valuable assessment
data. I have begun to schedule requests for visits and loans for the fall
semester. Check your schedules and send in your reservation requests. I am
looking forward to another year of serving teachers and students with Science
in Motion biology labs!
Jaclyn Basgil, Chemistry/Physics Mobile Educator Says…
The school year is quickly approaching.
If you’d like to use SIM this year, I’d recommend sending in your
reservation forms as soon as possible. Last year was a busy and great year
at SIM and I hope to make this year even better.
I’d like to thank all of the teachers who made it a rigorous but enjoyable
week in the physics lab at our annual summer workshop. I hope you all had
as much fun as I did and learned a lot. We performed an array of experiments
this year. We started off the week using our new Vernier Picket Fences to
perform a free-fall lab. We moved on to other new equipment, namely our digital
cameras, to do the lab Ball Toss with a video analysis component.
We also did many experiments that have been put to use in the classrooms of
our teachers already such as Simple Machines, Pendulum Periods and Momentum,
Energy and Collisions. We also spent some time during the week with the
new physics crime scene, The Case of the Clumsy Construction Worker.
Please contact me if you’re interested in trying it with your students.
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| Physics teachers experiment with various Vernier sensors on the rides at Knoebels Amusement Park. |
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We also visited Knoebels Amusement Park, as always, during the workshop. With the assistance of Mark Peterman from Montgomery Area High School, we all had fun performing the experiments in the Knoebels Physics Day packet. We even tried out the new Vernier Wireless Dynamics Sensors which we all agreed work great at the park.
Take a look at our Web site to find
available days as well as new equipment we have purchased for your classes.
I look forward to working with many of you again this year. Good luck!
Greg Stout, Mobile Educator Says...
From May 21st through the end of June, seven additional stream visits were made in conjunction with our Chesapeake Bay Commission sponsored water quality monitoring project. High School students from Bloomsburg (Doug VanBrunt), Central Columbia (Dana Hock, Greg Laubach), Juniata (Dan Smith), Shikellamy (Sheila Furr) and Selinsgrove (Tracy Hepner) conducted their final round of sampling and analyses of their respective streams. I couldn’t help but reflect how far the students had come since their initial visits in September/October of 2006. I trust that through this experience they will never forget the importance of protecting our streams, the Susquehanna River and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. For these very students are our future voters, taxpayers and potential leaders that will have the ability to impact environmental legislation and the future of our Commonwealth’s resources.
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Central Columbia High School teacher
Dana Hock and students |
SIM/SRBC Water Quality Workshop; Teachers
perform conductivity |
As Dr. Thomas noted in her opening comments, June was a month of workshops – our annual Summer Workshop as well as the SIM SRBC Water Quality Workshop. I enjoyed making some new acquaintances and working with teachers in both workshops. Hopefully, those that attended will be able to utilize what they learned at the workshops in the classroom this coming year.
SIM Mobile educators also had the opportunity in late May to attend a curriculum workshop at Juniata College. This was a unique occasion to investigate curricula used at other SIM sites with a view toward best practices and standardized format.
I’m looking forward to a
productive year working with many of you in the classroom, or out in the field.
Please contact me if you have any questions about Environmental or Ecology
Labs, as we continue to look at what we offer in this area. As we receive
your reservation forms, we will do our utmost to accommodate your requests.
Experiment of the Month
Investigating Enzymes (AP Lab #2)
Proteins, in particularly enzymes,
are a common topic for all levels of classes in biology. Proteins are involved
in nearly every function performed by a cell, and one of their most important
functions is to act as enzymes. Enzymes are catalysts that speed up the thousands
of chemical reactions occurring in every living cell. Not every chemical produced
inside of cells is beneficial to the cell. In fact, one byproduct of oxidative
metabolism in the cell is actually toxic to the cell. This product is hydrogen
peroxide, or H2O2 – a strong oxidizing agent that can disrupt the delicate
balance of cell chemistry. Cells produce an enzyme, catalase,
that breaks down hydrogen peroxide and in the SIM lab Investigating Enzymes,
students will research some factors that may affect the activity of that enzyme.
The source of the catalase is a crude homogenate of potatoes prepared in a
blender at the beginning of each class. Looking at the reaction ––
2 H2O2 + catalase ?2 H2O + O2 + catalase ––– one can see
that the production of oxygen gas can be used to measure the rate of the reaction,
since the faster the gas appears, the faster the H2O2 is being broken down
by the enzyme. If you put the catalase and the H2O2 together in a test tube
and hook the test tube up to a device that measures pressure, you will be
able to measure the rate at which the volume of oxygen gas is being produced.
This will tell you how fast the enzyme catalase is working – the reaction
rate which can be quantified using a Vernier gas pressure sensor to detect
those changes in pressure with data collected on a laptop computer. The slope
of the line tracing the changes in gas pressure is determined on the computer
and is recorded as the rate of the reaction. Because enzymes, as proteins
that depend on their three-dimensional shape to function, are affected by
conditions that alter their shape or structure students can investigate how
temperature and pH might affect the ability of catalase to break down hydrogen
peroxide. In addition, students can test the effect of concentration of substrate
or enzyme on the rate of the reaction, all by altering the contents of the
reaction tube. Slopes can be compared with students using the information
to explain how environmental factors affect the rate of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.
This experiment lends itself well to single and double period classes and
to entry and advanced level students as the choice or number of variables
can be altered to suit the needs of the class. Many teachers focus on 1 or
2 conditions, such as temperature or pH. Some teachers divide the class in
teams to investigate all variables and then compare and discuss results. This
lab also correlates with the AP lab #2. The data collection techniques and
the topics for discussion make this a popular Science in Motion biology offering.
Save a Tree
If you wish to receive
this newsletter in electronic format, please send us your e-mail address at
sciencemotion@susqu.edu or phone
us at 570-372-4779.
Courtney
Thomas
Director, Science in Motion
570-372-4778
thomasc@susqu.edu
