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A short guide for parents teaching science during the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020.
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Transcript Provided by YouTube:
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hi it’s Paul Anderson I’m a science
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educator and youtuber and like most
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people in America I’m home social
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distancing and thinking about how I
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could help other people and I know that
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there are a bunch of parents who have
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been thrust into the position of teacher
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as their schools are closing and a lot
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of that education is shifting to the
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home so I put together a survival guide
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for parents teaching science at home and
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so the first thing you should know about
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teaching science at home is that kids
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love doing science lots of times when I
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go into schools and I say we’re gonna do
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science they just they really get
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excited about that and that’s because
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kids love doing science not necessarily
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learning or reading about sightings
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writing about science but know that
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science is a verb and so it’s a great
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way when you’re home to get a break from
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a lot of the learning that we’re doing
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in actually doing some scientific
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inquiry one thing that’s neat about this
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is that you and your kids are
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intellectual equals when you’re teaching
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them to read or teaching them to do math
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they’re way lower than you are and I
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remember as a parent just eventually
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getting bored as your kids are reading
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brown bear brown bear over and over and
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you’re helping them read as you engage
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into scientific inquiry you’ll find that
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they have lived in the natural world and
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so they’re at the same level as you are
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and you’ll find yourself falling in love
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with the science that you’re doing as
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well also you should know there’s been a
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big shift in schools what’s important
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now in science is not so much what you
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learn but the questions that you’re able
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to ask as a student and can you answer
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those questions and so the requirements
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are pretty simple you need a child or
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multiple children is even better than
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that an apartment a home and then two
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basic supplies the best place to do
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science in the home is in the kitchen
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you want your kids to keep a notebook
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where they’re writing down what they’re
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observing what questions they’re having
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what experiments they’ve done and then
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you have to agree with each other that
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you’re not going to be googling the
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answer to questions if you look up the
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answer you’re not doing science anymore
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you’re just looking up somebody else’s
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science and then the most important
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thing to start with is a phenomena
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that’s what you’re going to figure out
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to define a phenomena it’s simply
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something that happens in the world and
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so I’ve got five of these little cards
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and you’ll notice at the top that
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there’s a question and that’s the
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question for you as the teacher your
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role is not to tell them the science but
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to ask them
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so they can figure it out on their own
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so let’s start with a sample phenomena
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this is one that works really well when
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you’re just getting started and so on
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this plate I’m writing with a dry erase
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marker you want to make sure that you
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use a real glazed plate you don’t want
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to use a matte finish
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you also want to make sure that the dry
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erase marker has time to dry I don’t
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know 30 seconds 60 seconds and then I’m
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pouring water from the side you can see
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that I’m pouring the water kind of
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slowly and I’m pouring it from the side
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and some of the letters start to float
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and some of the letters don’t flow so
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this is an example of a phenomena it’s
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what you’re gonna try to figure out now
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I’ve got a link to this video you can
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see it in the lower right corner and so
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it’s about 10 minutes of this and so you
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would start with having your students
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not play not doing investigating but
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trying to figure out what’s going on
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with this phenomena and so as you do
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that as you start to notice what’s going
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on you’re entering into a cycle of
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inquiry and this is where you start so
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to get this ready the first thing you
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want to do is make sure that this is
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gonna work so I would practice it the
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night before just to make sure when you
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show this to your kids show them the
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video it’s actually going to work for
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you it takes a little bit of trial in
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there to get it to work but then the
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first thing you do is give them a
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notebook it’s going to need five pages
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in the notebook we could call this the
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mysterious floating letters and what you
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want them to do is watch the video and
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then just start down writing down what
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they noticed those are called their
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observations and so it’ll be hard for
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them to do this at the beginning but you
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just give them time and they’ll start to
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observe things and all of a sudden
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they’ll start to notice things in the
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video that you didn’t even notice now if
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your kids can’t write then you can
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scribe some of the questions or just
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record what they’re asking in a video
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the key thing is to clearly get your
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observations out first and then the next
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step is to come up with what questions
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do you have
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what do you wonder about the phenomena
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just like observing as students start to
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ask questions they’ll have a hard time
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coming up with more than one or two
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questions but the longer you let the
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video play the more of those questions
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are gonna have now as you go forward in
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inquiry you might get other questions
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that pop up and then you just turn back
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a couple of pages and then add those
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questions right here now after you’ve
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kind of run out of questions the next
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thing to
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is to figure out what are your thinking
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that’s called an explanation in science
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and the way you would push kids to that
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point is you just say what do you think
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why does some of the letters flow why
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don’t some of the letters flow you would
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want them to explain what they think but
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then you can see that there’s a box here
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on the notebook I would have them draw
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what they’re thinking so if they’re
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younger it could be draw a little blue N
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and then a black end and show me why is
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the blue n floating and the black end
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not floating it could be as simple as
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just drawing where the water is going
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and then maybe as they go into middle
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middle school could be draw the
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particles and what do you think is
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happening with the particles in the
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plate and the particles in the letter
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again you’re not telling them the answer
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you’re just trying to get them to expose
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what they’re thinking now after they
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have a good explanation the next step is
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to investigate you want them to do some
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kind of an experiment to figure out if
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they’re right or not in science the most
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important thing when you’re doing
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science is safety so you want to make
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sure that the kids are writing down
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what’s their material list what will
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they need what’s their procedure you
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don’t just want to cut them loose in the
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kitchen and there all of a sudden
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boiling water and doing all kinds of
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experiment
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changes in temperature is actually a
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really cool thing that would impact this
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phenomena but you want them to submit
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your materials list and procedure to you
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and then you approve it and then they
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can do the experiment next thing they’re
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gonna do is argue from evidence what
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does that mean it’s just basically
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gathering a bunch of evidence and so you
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can tell me what I know so when you’re
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looking at an explanation that’s simply
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what do you think or we used to call
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that your hypothesis or your explanatory
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hypothesis but now once you’re actually
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gathering a bunch of evidence
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observations measurements graphs now you
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now you actually know something you’ve
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learned something about the phenomena
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but you can see this is a cycle so that
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probably leads to more questions and
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more explanations and more
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investigations and it just goes quickly
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around and around and around when I was
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playing around with this I was trying
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just rubbing alcohol and I got these
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weird circulation patterns and I’m
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really not sure exactly what’s going on
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I thought they were just heat but I
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don’t know what’s going on here or there
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is another student that was playing
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around with it and got
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letter that jumped off and just started
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moving around as if it’s alive again I’m
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not exactly sure what I think is going
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on here I’ve got some ideas but it shows
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you how a simple phenomena can lead to
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these extraordinary phenomena and that’s
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really what science is it’s asking
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questions answering some of those
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questions which lead to more questions
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and so in review where do you start you
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start with a phenomena something that
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we’re going to try to figure out
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together and then you’re just asking
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your kids what do you notice this is one
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that I ordered off Amazon it’s the Jedi
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science levitator I think it’s called
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wasn’t that expensive and I just threw
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the the explanation away so they don’t
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open up the box and see like this is
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this is it telling you how it works
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you’re gonna use science to figure out
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what’s going on so you’re gonna figure
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out like first of all what do we notice
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what questions might me have about that
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then a explanation maybe draw a picture
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of this wand and this floating object
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and why they think it’s floating and
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then the next is how could we
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investigate that what might we do to
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figure out if that’s right or wrong and
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you don’t even have to have this in your
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home to do all these steps of the
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inquiry just planning that investigation
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and what’s going on right here and then
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finally coming up with an argument to
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show you this is what I know at this
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point so this is really what you should
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do with your kids what’s great about it
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is if you can teach them these five
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skills eventually they can go on their
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own and they’ll entertain themselves and
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so I have a website called the wonder of
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science I do this work with schools and
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if you were to click on this button it
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shows you a bunch of phenomena you could
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choose one that are appropriate to the
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grade of your children I would love to
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hear if this is working let me know in
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the comments below share it with other
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parents and other teachers and I hope
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that was helpful
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Previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video.