Using Advertisements to Teach

I believe in the value of using advertisements to teach. Firstly because of the proliferation of the mass media. Our students are constantly using the Internet, watching the TV, listening to radio, and advertisements exist even at the bus-stops and MRT and other forms of public transport. Hence, using advertisements can serve to bring in the real-world context to the students and help students to see the relevance of science to their daily life. The use of the more popular advertisements has the benefit of being more memorable and better remembered due to the jingles or whatever, thanks to the effort of the publicity company. This enables the teacher to leverage on the success and bridge the gap between science and the students.

By using the advertisements, the teacher can structure the lesson such that the information presented in the advertisement be investigated. This help students to become more questioning and critical about what they see and receive from the media. This addresses one of the goals of the science curriculum, which is to help students become more discerning consumers.

The Hindenburg- Titanic of the Air

In 1937, in the skies over Lakehurst, US, New Jersey State, the German airship Hindenburg suddenly burst into flames. It had been filled with flammable hydrogen gas.
Static electricity was said to caused the airship tp explode into a ball of flame, which quickyly burned the airship. This was the end of the hydrogen airship industry. Airship today use helium, which is not flammeable and yet also lighter than air.

Video available: The Hinderburg Diaster- Titanic of the Sky, produced by National Geographic



Guiding questions for students:
1. Why was hydrogen used?
2. Why was helium not used then?

Possible Extentions:
1. Get students to play reporters and report the Hinderburg incident; they can report 'live' or produce a newspaper report for the Newspaper.
2. Students can also come up with a short documentary on the lesson learnt from this incident.

Using History To Teach

History has been recommended to teach science. Personally, as a student, I enjoy reading the autobiographies and biographies of some scientists, especially the female ones as I find their lives fascinating and amazing. I like to immerse and transport myself back to those times and see how these scientists work in their homes, labs, against the scepia background. Vivid thoughts and imaginations you will say. But I like that. It is not so much about the discovery that I was very much into; but rather, their determinations, the way they lived, their dedications. Hence, I believe in the value of using history; for it can be a means to interest the students, especially those with interpersonal intelligence.
Of course there are other advantages of using history. For one, it enables students to see the development of a science concept or model over time and help students see that the nature of science is that it is not perfect, but one should seek to improve on the current knowledge.
Another is that history help orientate students to the process of science; of how an investigation was planned to study and obtain the results that help establish the knowledge that they are studying today. Also, it serves to help them understand that with new technology, more gaps to current knowledge can be filled and help them understand the ever changing state of flux and improvement that the field of science is in.
But due to time constraints and the tight curriculum schedule, the teacher should exercise professional judgement in using history. However, it does no harm for the teacher to read up on a few incidences and do some research on the pausible ideas that he/she may want to incorporate in some chapters...

Glucosamine

Below show the nutritional information of a bottle of glucosamine supplements commonly taken by elderly persons to alleviate joint pains. Name 2 homologous families that are present.

Glucosamine is a precursor of glycoasminoglycans, a component of the joint cartilage. Hence, it is taken as a supplement to prevent cartilage degeneration and some components such as chondroitin is said to improve its efficacy.

Fleet Fish

Article from: Discovery Channel Magazine; October 2010, pp. 32, 33

The fleet fish is the quickest marine animal in the seas and can outpace many small cars. It can travel up to a maximum speed of 110km/hour and is a sailfish of the family Istiophoridae. It is better at accelerating and can grow up to over 3m, 100kg and live up to 10 years as they have few natural predators. Their various structures and adaptations include:

1. Skin: Unique skin with V-shaped protrusions. Some researchers theroise that this help cut down skin-friction from the water. It can create vortices that change the boundary layer drag slightly, a bit like what the shark skin does.

2. Streamline: They have sickle-shaped fins or flippers, narrow lunate (crescent moo-shaped) tail fins and a classic teardrop-shaped body. All this cuts down drag to a minimum; to a stunning efficient coefficient of 0.0075 to be precise. In comparison, the highly slippery Ferrari Testarossa has a drag coefficient of 0.36.

3. Life cycle: Adult sailfish live in Atlantic and Pacific oceans, in the warm and temperate zones. Females produce millions of eggs but as the tiny fertilised larvae are a favourite food for many other fish, only a dozen or so will make it through to adulthood.

4. Speed: 100km/hour. It does so by lowering its drag (skin friction).

5. Muscle: Also contribute to its fast speed. It has a large reserve of white muscles, great for acceleration but not so goof for long swims. To make up for this, it has additional layers of red (myoglobin-rich) muscle which give stamina for longer swims. The sailfish also makes use of a network of blood vessels that help warm the red muscles, making them more efficient.

6. Sail: The exact function of the sailfish’s huge dorsal fin remains a mystery. Fishermen say it is used to help round up fish before feeding, others say it helps it manoeuvre quickly at its top speeds. It has even been likened to a radiator, for warming the fish’s blood when it is on the surface, so its red muscle can work more effectively.

7. Beak: Beak for feeding. It is necessary though it increases the overall drag. Sailfish swim into a school of fish (sardines, mackerel, anchovies), swinging their beak side to side to whack and stun the unlucky ones. Then, they swim back through the school and eat the floating and insensible victims.

I came across an advertisement in Readers' Digest about Hypocol. Hypocol is a supplement said to contain Red Yeast Rice produced by fermentation rice with red yeast for lowering blood lipid levels and cholesterol.

The product of red rice fermentation will produce monacolin K, which is similar to lovastatin, which is used to lower cholesterol levels, in terms of its structure and function. The monacolin K can inhibit the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme that is responsible for cholesterol production in the liver and hence aids in lowering the cholesterol level.

Fermentation
- Consists of glycolysis + anaerobic respiration
- Glycolysis: Breaking down of glucose; 2 ATP, 2 NADH and 2 pyruvic acid formed
- Anaerobic respiration: Oxidation of NADH and transformation of pyruvic acid into a final waste product, which is either ethanol or lactic acid, depending on the organism doing the fermenting (yeast or muscle cell).
- When yeast or some types of bacteria is used, the end result is alcohol. This has applications in beer and wine.
- When other types of bacteria is used, the end result will be acids such as propionic acid or lactic acid or acetic acid. This has applications in cheese, yoghurt, soy sauce and vinegar.

Implication for teaching:
- Can be used to teach the chapter on fermentation, enzymes, biomolecules (chloesterol).

Guiding questions for students:

1. What is fermentation?
2. What are the conditions necessary for fermentation?
3. What other applications does fermentation have?

4. What are lipids?

5. What are blood lipid levels?

6. How can cholesterol affect our health?

7. How is HypoCol said to lower blood cholesterol levels?

8. What is the chemical structure of cholesterol?

Greeting and Smiling

The March 2009 Readers' Digest reported that greeting and smiling at students can boost their productivity.
Implication for me as a teacher: Smile and greet students' individually every morning. This will help build rapport with the students too.

Organising

I have always wanted to get my stuff and thoughts organised. A conversation with a friend of mine gave birth to this blog. I will now try to use this blog to organise my reviews and thoughts on the articles, books and journals that I have read on life, science, education ... Perhaps lesson plans will be added soon. I don't know. We shall see how useful this is.