Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Water cycle and rain

Introduction
Do you like sunny day or rainy day? Did you think about where is the rain come from and how it is form? Is the sunny doll useful to stop the rain? If you want to know the secret of the rain. Let's understand this interesting water cycle in the atmosphere.

















Process
In order to understand the water cycle. You have to read the text on the websites , check the funny video. The games on the websites are also recommended as it can help you to understand better. After that, you have to form a group with 4 person and draw your own water cycle on a A2 paper and present for 8-10 minutes in the class. Also, we will try to make rain by in class, please try once at home before.

Task
Part 1, Read the text here http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/swater.html  and the game on the website is recommended. Then watch a funny cartoon here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cb3SIMRCIE to understand the process of water cycle and how rains come from briefly.














After reading, try to draw the process of  water cycle and present for 8-10 minutes. Discussion will be follow by the presentation.

Part 2
After understand the theory, let's do something fun! Try to make your rain!
Check this website and there are two methods to make the rain , http://www.essortment.com/kids-weather-rain-facts-57126.html . Try the first one and we will do the second one during lesson.
After doing the experiments, write a report talking what do you feel,what did you learn, any problems that you got or any comment of this experiments. Comments and questions are welcome during the experiement.

Evaluation

1
2
3
Presentation
-There can be more elabration for the concepts.
-Just direstly read form the notes and the interaction with the audience is not enough
-The ideas are correctly presented.
-Eye contact and gesture is fairly enough.
-Present logically with a clear picture.  The ideas are well elabrated and organized.
-With eye contact and good gesture. Not just read from a note but try to interact with the audience.
Report
-The report is not well oragnized and the comment is rather rough.
- The report are clearly written with comments.
-The report is presented with good structure, there are supporting ideas, examples, elabrations.
-Comment are relevant
Participation
-Did not ask or answer any question, inactive in the experiement.
-Ask and answer some questions in the discussion and experiement.
-Asking relevant questions after the presentation and active in discussion. Active in the experiement

Conclusion
After the assignments you shoud know more about the water cycle and how rain is formed. Also, you should be more about the skills of presentation.

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

Our experience of Model-based learning in the context of simulation of the greenhouse effect

I think it is a very nice model as we can try in different situation and find out the answer by observation. The system is clearly and well organized and we can see how the green house gas change the temperature. Experience is much better than just read from the text. As it the reality, it is hard to understand the situation as we are not professional, but by this model, the concept is much easily presented.

pair work

a) Sunlight becomes infrared when it reach the ground. When there is no cloud, some of the radiation goes back to the space, some of them remains in the atmosphere and the tempature increase. When the number of clouds increase, less sunlight reach the ground but at the same time, more radiation trap in the atmosphere, cause greenhouse effect.On the other hand, when it is in the ice age, the temperature is lower even there are same amount of sunlight going in and out, it is because of there is less amount of CO2, CH4,N2O. So, we can see the difference of the atmosphere in different situation.

b) No, not enough.

c) The main things are the difference of green house gas composition. When the area is more developed, there are more green house gas. These green house gas absorbs and traps more radition in the atmopshere, so it causes the temperature higher and causes green house effect.

d) When gas concentration is none, more radiation goes back to the space so the tempature is the lowest. And in today and 1750, the percentage of green house gas is quite high, and the temperature gets higher when comparing with the previous case. Lastly, for the situation with lots of green house gas, the temperature is the highest as most of the radiation is trapped.

Individual work 2

To my opinion, gases take the biggest role . When the light gets into the atmosphere, some of them are reflected back to the atmosphere by the cloud and some of them reach the gorund. As there are green house gas which absorb heat , the atmosphere become warmer. So, When there are more green house gases, the temperature incrase.

Individual work 1

It is the learner's mental model.The The model is a cyle, when there is new information or new knowledge, the students  first  will understand, experience. After that, they will evalute and they may reject or absorb the information at the end. No matter they reject ot they accept it, it will become a model information again and that how they learn.