Tuesday--Levers

Today when we talked about levers it was a definite flashback for us to college physics. It has been awhile for some of us, that haven't touched on this concept. The hands-on was great, but the lesson will have to be adapted for both elementary students and for the high school biology teacher. We would definitely offer less levers for the children to use. But depending on the age of the students we would maybe get the students to add a bit of inquiry into this by bringing some levers from home. By tying this into the human body--we should be able to bring the biology students into the classroom to work with the younger kids. Teaching the students some shortcuts, such as FRE (based on what part is in the middle, is the type of lever. For example, 1st class F (fulcrum) is in the middle, 2nd class R (resistance) is in the middle, etc.) Allowing the students to use manipulatives to model each class of lever will allow the students to understand the concept more clearly. It was a good day, and we feel that we are well on our way to getting our project ready. Cathee, Kim, and Sonja