Thank you AVID Science 1, a summer conference I took recently.  This was a wonderfully ingenious lab I did with my Geoscience students, both periods 1 and 2.  It does require quite a bit of set-up and some rather ordinary materials.  Once you are organized, it works out great, as long as the students follow the rules of the lab.

Materials:

• 2 small paper plates
• 4 twist ties
• 2 straws
• Aluminum foil 12 x 12
• 1 small paper cup
• 2 paper clips
• 3 rubber bands
• 1 sheet of paper
• 8 cm of tape

Procedures

The students each received a handout (provided by AVID)  Think It-Build It-Write It-The Gemklocx, which explained the procedure, in addition to the PowerPoint and my oral directions.

There were two main parts of the lab, which is designed to teach students the importance of following EXACT procedures during lab experiments.

First, each student partners with another student forming a team.  Each team receives one set of materials to create and build a model of their own originality.  The time limit is 20 minutes.  At the same time, each team MUST record their procedure, item by item so that the next team can recreate their EXACT model without being able to see it.  All materials must be used and the students were not allowed to add any materials.

Second, the teams were told to hide their models so the other teams could not see them.  Each team was given the exact same materials as previously in addition to the written procedures provided by one of the random teams.  These teams had only 10 minutes to recreate the original model of the first team.

It was one of the best labs.  It was early in the year, and the students were so engaged in the entire process.  They loved created something their own.  Their follow-up reflections regarding the lab concept, procedures, ease and/or difficulty revealed the majority of the students believed the writing of the procedures specific enough for another team to follow was, indeed, the most difficult part.  I look forward to doing it again next year.