Spinning Toys - Topic of a National Webinar

The last EdTechConnect Webinar (web and teleconference) is scheduled for today at 5:00 PM. Discovery Education asked their Star Discovery Educators from around the country to submit projects they had worked on with teachers and students. Fred Delventha, a Zero G team member and a Star Discovery Educator, was one of 4 presenters selected.

Here is the blurb from the announcement.

http://www.denblogs.com/discovery_educator_networ/2007/05/last_edtechconn.html

Fred Delventhal will be presenting Spinning Toys: Balance and Motion in Microgravity. Fred was part of a team of teachers that guided second graders through the scientific process to find out the effect of gravity on spinning toys. They conducted the experiments on NASA's Reduced Gravity Jet - The Weightless Wonder. Fred used this project to introduce new technologies to the teachers involved such as blogging, Flickr, and Google Docs.

Sharing with a wider audience

One of the underlying goals that NASA wanted us to include is how can we share our experiences with a much larger audience than just our classes or the people in our school.

Last week I was able to share with a class at Ashlawn Elementary. Mrs. Frye's fourth grades were loaded with questions about the whole experience from planning to what exactly happened on the flight. They were challenged to make their own predictions for the second graders experiments.

Video from the Flight of Mrs. Donovan

These are just a couple of of clips from Feb. 6, 2007. This is the day that Mrs. Donovan flew with Ms. Nash.

The first video is the Weightless Wonder taking off.





The second video is of the plane coming in after landing.



Please note that these small videos were taken using the video feature on our Sony Still Cameras. It is easy then to upload the video using Yahoo Video. Once uploaded Yahoo provides html code to post into the blog to make watching and playing the video very easy.

Zero Gravity Team Featured on APS Web Site

On Jan. 12, 2007, Barrett's Zero Gravity Flight Team was the featured picture on the Arlington Public Schools' web site.

The Hoops Are Spinning

Today we began with the kids. We met in the library with all of the 2nd grade classes. Andrea did a wonderful job demonstrating all of the different toys. I was able to do a little demonstration of how hula hoops can be used. You can watch a video of it by clicking here.

After the library a couple of classes went into the gym to try out the two toys that the students chose, the hula hoop and frisbees. The children were separated to different halves of the gym and given some time to test out different ways that the equipment could be manipulated or moved. They came up with some interesting ways that we as teachers never though of. One student walked around the whole time with a frisbee on their head.