Day 10 - Chris Hadfield - ISS (Is Somebody Singing)

The Problem...

How does the song I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing) illustrate physics concepts and how has Chris Hadfield's stay on the ISS impact the way the public thinks about Canada's contribution to Science? 

Why?

• Exposure to seldom heard Canadian point of view on space exploration
• Illustrates how Science can directly impact Society
• Deepen understanding of physics concepts and address misconceptions

Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut and has been the commander of the International Space Station (ISS) for the past few months.  From orbit, he has been taking stunning pictures of the Earth and tweeting them.  

Nice pic of Toronto in this tweet:

Tonight's Finale: Toronto, Ontario. Interesting the different things that become more visible at night. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) April 16, 2013

Hadfield has drawn tons of media attention for the tweets and videos he has created.  This entry is inspired by the completion of Chris Hadfield's stay on the ISS (he returns to Earth tomorrow evening).  Have a safe journey home Chris!

The Song...

While on the ISS, Chris Hadfield co-wrote a song with Barenaked Lady Ed Robertson (who was on Earth).  The media attention has been surprising (I have heard the song on several different radio stations over the past week).  

I think it would be interesting to have a Science class examine some of the lyrics in the song to pick out and examine some of the concepts presented.  This blog entry contains some background information on the writing of the song as well as the lyrics and sheet music complete with guitar chords.   

To turn this into an in-class activity, I would flip the video to the class for homework and provide them with some questions to prompt them thinking about the physics concepts mentioned.  I would then provide them with the lyrics in class and would task groups of students with making the connections and checking the claims (and see how much creative license Hadrield and Robertson take!).  They could then present their results to the rest of the class to start discussions on the topic.  

This activity requires student-directed Knowledge Construction because essentially they have to generate their own questions and figure out how to solve them.  

Below I have identified some of the lyrics that may be used in class discussions:

"Pushed back in my seat/Look out my window/There goes home"

• At what point in the mission is Hadfield 'pushed back in his seat'?  What is he experiencing?  What is the physics behind that feeling? (an illustration of inertia and acceleration)
• What would he feel this while orbiting in the ISS?
• There is a common misconception about the lack of gravity an orbiting astronaut would experience.  Really there is gravity, the weightlessness is attributed to the fact that the ISS is actually in free-fall around the earth.

"I can hear your voices bouncing off the moon"

• This is more than just a metaphor! What is he referring to? 

 "All black and white just fades to grey/Where the sun rises sixteen times a day"

• Why does the sun rise 'sixteen times a day'?
• Why does the ISS not fall to earth?
• This is a good way to introduce the concept escape velocity
• This site contains interesting facts on the orbit of the ISS.

"Eighteen thousand miles an hour/fueled by science and solar power"

• This also relates to escape velocity and can be used to calculate kinetic energy of the ISS (see below)

"At half a thousand tons/Ninety minutes Moon to Sun/A bullet can't go half this fast"

• Check the validity of this statement! How fast do bullets generally travel?
• How much kinetic energy does the ISS have compared to a bullet?
• The ISS started a pieces on Earth.  How did we get the kinetic energy of the ISS to that value?

"What once was fueled by fear/Now has fifteen Nations orbiting together here" 

and...

"You can't make out borders from up here/Just a spinning ball within a tiny atmosphere"

• These quotes give us some perspective and are an opportunity to explore deeper questions about our place on the planet and in the universe and the role of science in our society

Curriculum...

This lesson is flexible because of the student-constructed knowledge aspect.  They ask the questions that they will answer.  Because of this, it could potentially be appropriate in any high school Science/Physics class.

There's some interdisciplinary opportunity here too.  Hatfield's Twitter pictures would be awesome to study in a physical geography class.  It could also potentially be an appropriate topic of discussion for a civics class.  The obvious connection is to a music class...

21st Century...

Students will have to use internet resources to answer their questions about the lyrics.  The fact that the material is presented as a song (and video) will appeal to a broad range of high school students.  It also models another possible medium that they can use to present material for assignments: through song! 

1. Collaboration: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
2. Knowledge Construction: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
5. Self-Regulation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
6. Use of ICT for Learning: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation

Future Lessons...

• Other internationally funded Science projects (Ex. The Large Hadron Collider)

More material...

Here's another Ed Robertson blog entry on Science and Songwriting. Awesome quote: "If you want to improve your songwriting, work on your math and science."  
Some trivia: the Barenaked Ladies do the theme song to Science-laden TV comedy Big Bang Theory.

This is another cool Hadfield video where he talks about how he takes the pictures from the ISS.

Day 3 - How Many Lightbulbs?

The Problem...

How much energy do you regularly use?  How much of an impact will you have if you reduce your energy use?

Why?

• Students examine and visualize the extent of their regular energy use to get an intuitive sense of what energy really is
• Bring big sustainability topics into science classes

Visualizing Energy...

This is a video I found a while ago on TED-Ed:

This video is full of important Science, Math and Sustainable Development topics.  It helps students visualize energy use (hard to visualize by itself) in terms of lightbulbs (easier to visualize).  He discusses the fact that we need more substantial, systemic change than just 'eliminating plastic bags' to really make a difference in the world.  

The video has been flipped on TED-Ed, meaning that in addition to the video, it has questions and extra resources for students.  It is a good place to start a conversation on difficult topics such as sustainable power generation and personal energy use.  Today I will focus on the personal energy use aspect.  Flipped to a class, the questions given on TED-Ed can act as a homework check for a teacher as well as a formative assessment about their current understanding of the topic.

Personal Energy Audit

Watching the video, I was reminded of a project from third year where I had to perform a Personal Energy Audit by tracking my energy use over the course of a week.  We then had to analyze our results and create a plan to reduce our energy consumption.  Here are some of my results from that project:

The hardest part about collecting the data is figuring out the rate of consumption of each item.  Most of them require the application of Ohm's Law (V=I/R) to find out the current.  The natural gas can be found from utility bills and transportation can be approximated by mileage and gas consumption.  This is where a Google Spreadsheet would come in handy.  Each student could be assigned a different item and figure out how much energy it consumes for each hour/kilometre/month in operation and record the value and any assumptions. They could record their findings on the spreadsheet so the rest of the class would be able to see it.  They could then use their classmates' values to Collaboratively calculate their total energy consumption by just keeping track of approximately how long each appliance is running and multiplying it by the consumption.  The collaborative aspect of the task makes it much less laborious for each student while emphasizing the need for authentic and necessary collaboration. 

Be Critical...

After performing the analysis, they would be responsible for creating an Action Plan that they can use to figure out how to reduce their energy consumption which they will put into practice.  They should then compare their results to the number of lightbulbs given by the presenter in the video and critically analyze his assumptions.  As an extension, the whole class can look at the total energy consumption and find out how many lightbulbs that equates to.  Group discussions can be used to develop strategies for reducing power consumption as a school/community and educate their peers on the issue.

The investigation gives the students a great feel for the scale of their impact compared to the assumptions in the video.  They can validate the speakers assumptions based on their own data and determine whether their personal impact is worth the effort it may require.

Curriculum connections...

In terms of curriculum, the assignment requires appropriate research, unit conversions, energy conversions, record keeping and data management, and basic electricity and energy calculations.  Based on these expectations, Grade 11 or 12 Science would probably be appropriate.  I think an interesting application would be for students to start the project in Grade 9 (or earlier) and track their energy use until Grade 12.  This way they can evaluate and improve their own plans for reducing their energy consumption. 

On the 21st Century Continuum...

Depending on how far a teacher wants to go with this project, I think it has the potential to be transformative in all dimensions of the 21C framework.  The best part of it is that they can put self-constructed knowledge to good use with their Action Plans and set a good example for friends and family members by implementing them.


1. Collaboration: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
2. Knowledge Construction: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
3. Real-World Problem Solving & Innovation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation


4. Skilled Communication: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
5. Self-Regulation: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
6. Use of ICT for Learning: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation





D2L

Today I attended a D2L training session.  D2L would provide students doing an Energy Audit with the tools to collect the data, discuss the results and share the results with each other.  They would also be able to share their results across schools and boards and track their progress over the years.  

Future Lesson Ideas

• Nuclear Power Generation and Energy Return on Investment (EROI)
• Analyse carbon footprint/GHG emissions
• Embodied energy and life-cycle analysis

Day 2 - We Stopped Dreaming

Neil deGrasse Tyson is a one of my favourite astrophysicists (as well as subject of the fairly popular meme below from http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/neil-degrasse-tyson-reaction).

A lesson I developed for the Space Exploration Unit in grade 9 Science for one of my classes at OISE involved the following video based on Neil deGrasse Tyson audio clips:

The discussion...

In the lesson, the video was meant to stimulate discussion on the ethics of funding space exploration. For that lesson, I kept the discussion centred around the ethics of space exploration but it could easily broadened into a discussion about science funding in general.  It can also be used as a starting point for Digital Citizenship conversations about reliable sources online and bias.  Some interdisciplinary (Science, Math, Civics, History and Politics) discussion topics are:

• Bias in the video
• Funding space exploration with tax dollars
• Ethical issues with funding of science and scientific research in general
• What sources should we use to verify Neil's claims about NASA funding?
• Verify Neil's claim about cutting 4/10ths of 1% into the dollar bill
• How has the funding changed since the video was made?
• How does the funding of Canada's version of NASA, the Canadian Space Agency compare to NASA funding?
• What cultural impact has Chris Hadfield had with his tweets from the ISS?

In a class...

I think a good way to use the video is to flip it to the class for homework using something such as TED-Ed where you can add multiple choice and discussion questions and have students answer them at home before a class discussion.  The questions can prompt Knowledge Construction where students to explore their preconceived notions about the topic and how their opinion may change after watching the video.  The teacher receives the results and can structure activities and discussion prompts based on those opinions.

STSE

Space exploration funding is that it is a great example of an STSE issue (science, technology, society and the environment) that aligns with the [Grade 9 Science] curriculum and is also a good entry point for the implementation of the 21C framework.  What I like about the secondary Science curriculum is that it stresses STSE issues (the ordering of expectations used to be skills then concepts then STSE but is now reversed to STSE then concepts then skills).  This provides Science teachers with an opportunity to ask more open-ended and critical questions.  [I actually think the extremely dense math curriculum could benefit from a similar structure]

On the 21C Continuum...

By no means does the idea reach the transformative end of the continuum by itself but it does start to get students' brains critically thinking about media and provides an opportunity for a great discussion in subjects that do not traditionally present such opportunities (Science).  The is an opportunity for students to exhibit Skilled Communication, both in classroom discussions and in online discussion questions on TED-Ed, D2L or other platform.  It also opens the doors to larger discussions on the Nature of Science and the impact of Science on culture.

2. Knowledge Construction: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation
4. Skilled Communication: entry - adoption - adaptation - infusion - transformation

Neil deGrasse Tyson Extras

• More videos on the topic can be found at: http://www.penny4nasa.org/category/videos/
• This is an interesting link to a Neil deGrasse Tyson interview with Jian Ghomeshi on Q: http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2012/03/28/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-q/