Thursday, 10 February 2011
Seng Kang Glog- Vitrual Field Trip
http://jingoz.glogster.com/sengkang-799/
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Thursday, 16 December 2010
Using Advertisements to Teach
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
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
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...
Monday, 13 December 2010
Glucosamine
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
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.