Bill Z's Blog

This afternoon, I conducted a clinical interview with three middle school students to investigate children's science thinking. This is one of the assignments for the Ed 538 Science Teaching Methods class I am taking this term at Pacific University. I am fulfilling my field experience for this class by volunteering in Monica Arbow's 7th grade science class at Whitford Middle School in Beaverton. I questioned Maggie, Ryan, and Jessica about their concept of atmosphere. I was surprised at how well they understood that the atmosphere surrounds and protects the earth, and that it contains air which is not present in space. I had them experiment with a baster and a syringe to explore the concept of atmospheric pressure. This was not particularly interesting or stimulating for the students, but I got some insights into how I could redesign this inquiry to investigate the differences between liquids and gases, and form hypothesis to explain the differences. As usual when working with students, I think I learned more from what didn't work well than from what did work well.