Ceramic Eye on Science

This was probably my favorite video of the summer. Unfortunately, this video was too long and removed from Youtube. However, please check back for an update as I will either post it on another website or split the video into two files.

This was the second time I taught this class and it turned out awesome. Unfortunately, the big project got messed up when a couple kids tried to move as the thing was going and so the full effect was lost, but it was still awesome nonetheless.

And yes, I realized I spelled domino wrong too late... lol

Science Sampler was an awesome class to teach. The students were 1st and 2nd graders and the subject was whatever the heck I wanted it to be. We made slime, sculpted and painted homemade volcanos, played with dominoes, made water rockets, did invisible ink, disolved the shells off of eggs, built model bridges, etc. One of my personal favorites however, is "blowing the face off of a watermelon". I usually do this with pumpkins, which works much better because of the tighter, harder shell. The watermelon works OK, but it can be hit or miss on working because it tends to absorb some of the gasses and let alot of the gasses escape because the edges aren't as tight. I make up for this by pushing the pieces in hard, which then causes some of them to get stuck as you will see in the video. Pumpkins really pop loudly and shoot the face off very hard. I'm going to try that again with my regular school students this fall and post video of that then.

And yes, I realize that I spelled Domino wrong like a dufus. I did on another video too. Unfortunately, its too late to change it because I don't have the original video to edit anymore.

This LEGO class was a little different because we were in a different room that was a little too crowded. We managed though and it actually came out quite well. Space was a fun theme.

Playground Science was alot of fun to teach. I really was shooting at the hip on this one, but physics is just so awesome it was a great class. The last day, we made a geodesic dome out of newspaper. I had done this once before for an engineering class last summer, but this time I got it on film. I decided to edit this one as a tutorial.

This week I have been teaching another Scratch class at the Museum.  It has been a really different class than my first one.  They students seem to be just as creative, but in a completely different way than then last class.  Also, they are EXTREMELY quiet.  I've never found myself wishing that the students would be more talkative and exciteable, but this whole bunch has been extremely quiet and shy for the most part, although by today they were starting to warm up.  More finished projects can be found at my profile on Scratch's website.

http://scratch.mit.edu/users/MuseumofScience 

Another successful week of LEGOs at the Museum of Science. This was probably the best LEGO/picocricket class I've done so far. I think the theme helped first of all (amusement parks are all made for motion, whereas circus or zoos are not as easily), but also I had a really creative bunch of kids this week. They just did a fantastic job with everything.

We had some problems during the second half of the presentation. This was due to the fact that kids shared crickets and wires, so after the first half were done, the second half had to re-setup their wires and parts and re-program the crickets in a hurry. Batteries, loose wires, etc, were slowing things down in the second half, but things worked out in the end.

Yes, and as I edited this video, I noticed I say "alright" ALOT.

This was a fun, yet exhausting, class to teach. Based on Bones was for 1-2nd graders at the Museum this summer. I was supposed to teach another class but a scheduling conflict with the LEGO class meant that I had to switch around with another teacher. Lauren was a big help this week, as she even substituted for me one day when I was gone.

The last day of class we dissected owl pellets to find the bones of rodents they had eaten. The kids then glued the bones to black construction paper and took them home.

By the way, little children are energy vampires. Those little bodies have so much energy, I am convinced they just drain it from the adults around them.

So this first video is from a recent LEGOs engineering class I taught at the museum that uses Picocrickets to control the motors, lights, sounds, etc. made by the LEGO creations.  This particular class had a circus theme.  The class did a really good job considering some of the challenges that they had to overcome - such as having a few missing crickets which meant people had to do more sharing.  I had a good time with this class though it was exhausting.  Thanks to Rachel who was a huge help that week.

 Scratch is an awesome program developed by MIT to help children learn basic programing skills that uses a visual process for writing a program.  Kids can program their own cartoons, interactive cartoons, and games using Scratch.

http://scratch.mit.edu 

A few weeks ago, a teacher at the Museum had to cancel on teaching her classes because she had an opportunity to move (or something like that).  My boss asked me to teach the class instead of some others I was going to do because I had experience teaching Picoblocks which uses a similiar interface.

I agreed to do it and spent the weekend learning the program.  And I had so much FUN!!!  This program is awesome.  I am going to be teaching it twice this summer.  I hope I get more opportunities in the future.


My profile that I used to post student's work on the website is 

http://scratch.mit.edu/users/MuseumofScience

Ok, so I've decided to make a website for myself where I can post science related materials, particularly stuff that I've been a part of, to share with others.

Mainly, I am going to post videos and pictures from projects I have worked on - mostly from the Boston Museum of Science.

This is an easy way for me to share things with parents who want to get copies of photos and videos of their children's work, and it is a way for me to keep those communication lines open for networking.

As some of you may know, the Museum has decided to close the courses program at the end of the summer. I figure it wouldn't hurt to have a way for parents to contact me in case opportunities for other jobs or free-lancing ever come up.  

- keep in touch