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Needle Through the Balloon: Skewering Misconceptions
Book Chapter |
Prior experiences and conceptions that students have about a wide variety of science phenomena (e.g., sharp needles pop balloons) often form barriers to developing more scientifically valid understandings. In this…
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Happy and Sad Bouncing Balls: Student Diversity Matters
Book Chapter |
This activity features two seemingly identical black rubber balls—one happy and one sad—that behave quite differently. The two balls can be used to introduce the National Science Education Standards’ unifying concepts…
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Electrical Circuits: Promoting Learning Communities
Book Chapter |
Direct current (DC) electricity flows through a closed circuit of people, and a battery-powered ball lights up. In this activity, the Energy Ball (or UFO Ball) is a Ping-Pong ball look-alike battery-powered ball that…
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Eddy Currents: Learning Takes Time
Book Chapter |
A metal slug dropped into a copper tube falls under the pull of gravity and drops out at the bottom fairly quickly. When a second, apparently identical, slug is dropped into the tube, it falls quite slowly. If one slug…
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Cognitive Inertia: Seeking Conceptual Change
Book Chapter |
Cognitive inertia (or conservatism)—the tendency of humans to continue to think both what and how they have previously thought—applies at both the individual and the scientific community level. This activity features…
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Optics and Mirrors: Challenging Learners' Illusions
Book Chapter |
Science depends on empirical evidence, logical argument, and skeptical review. Optical illusions challenge us to consider if our eyes sometimes play tricks on us. In this activity, coins dropped into a magic bank appear…
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Polarizing Filters: Examining Our Conceptual Filters
Book Chapter |
If two polarizing filters are placed perpendicular to each other, both horizontal and vertical vibrations will be blocked, allowing little light to be transmitted. In this activity, two polarizing filters are overlaid…
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Invisible Gases Matter: Knowledge Pours Poorly
Book Chapter |
Invisible gases are a form of matter that have volume or occupy space. In this activity, water flows down through two identical funnels, each inserted in a two-hole stopper, into two identical flasks. The water flows at…
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The Stroop Effect: The Persistent Power of Prior Knowledge
Book Chapter |
If learners are asked to state, as fast as they can, the colors of a sequence of words that appear in different colors than the colors named, the first inclination of most is to read the words rather than naming the…
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Rattlebacks: Prior Beliefs and Models for Eggciting Science
Book Chapter |
In this activity, a translucent, half-ellipsoid-shape, molded acrylic polystyrene object—known as a “rattleback”—is placed on an overhead projector or under a document camera and is observed to spin freely if pushed in…
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Burning a Candle at Both Ends: Classrooms as Complex Systems
Book Chapter |
This introductory activity models how simple it is to prepare and execute interactive, discrepant-event demonstration-experiments. They can be used daily to activate students’ perceptual attention, catalyze cognitive…
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Tornado in a Bottle: The Vortex of Teaching and Learning
Book Chapter |
In this activity, two 2 L plastic soda bottles are connected at their mouths. Colored water from the upper bottle falls in the lower bottle quickly only after the two bottle system is given a twist to create a spiraling…
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Floating and Sinking: Raising FUNdaMENTAL Questions
Book Chapter |
Learning science is FUNdaMENTAL—that is, it is a combination of hands-on FUN and minds-on MENTAL activity. It builds on students’ prior knowledge that has been acquired both from formal instruction and from daily life…
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Cartesian Diver: A Transparent but Deceptive "Black Box"
Book Chapter |
An eyedropper “diver”—eyedropper, dropper, diver, and Cartesian diver are used interchangeable in this activity—can be made to float, sink, or remain suspended in the middle of a water-filled, capped, plastic 2 L soda…
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Crystal Heat: Catalyzing Cognitive Construction
Book Chapter |
A small metal clicker/disk within a sealed pouch containing a clear, colorless liquid is clicked, and the liquid rapidly crystallizes into a solid mass and releases a large quantity of heat. If the solidified pouch is…
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