Friday, July 16, 2010

Week 3 -- good days/ bad days

PHOTOS FROM CLEAN ROOM ACTIVITY....on TUESDAY JULY 13th

Using discs -, we put a film on the disc and put it in the centrifuge to spread it out evenly.

We then put it on a hot plate so that we could dry it on.

We put this disc into a machine which etched out the design.

After we did that, we put it on the hot plate again.

We then removed the film from the spots that were etched out.

We checked the disc through the microscope and checked out the design on the film,

Then cleaned our mess.



















On Monday we were to meet early in the am with Helen Fawcett so that we could be introduced to our new lab. We got there on time but she was not there.


There was an emergency in one of the labs in the morning when we first were going to meet up with her but then she did come and find us so that we could learn and meet our new lab professor.

We met Ranjith Premasiri in the lab where he has a Raman Spectroscopy Microscope. He talked to us about what he is doing; essentially the machine takes a "fingerprint" of the substance - every material has its own unique fingerprint (like us -- the fingerprint is close but never the same) - they are producing a library of "fingerprints" of bacteria so that when someone goes to the doctor's office instead of the doctor saying try this - it looks like this virus etc- the doctor will be able to put this information in the Portable Raman Spectroscopy and give the correct medication or antibiotic right away .... Now I had to figure out how to make that work in my classroom. but that would have to wait until Wednesday afternoon as there were meetings to attend to....

Tuesday was pretty cool - we worked in the clean room again. We made our own plates which I took some pictures of. We will be working in the lab again next week. It was very fun - although it gets a little hot after a while with double gloves, double boots and such....





Then Wednesday came -- frustration again - what do you mean that we have to make a poster on our experiment and present it to our colleagues? We don't really have an experiment yet and don't have a lesson plan etc etc etc -- So after discussing my dilemna with the other RET teachers, I wrote up a proposal and spoke to "Randy" about it. I thought that seeing that I do a Physical / Chemical changes lab with white powdery substances where the students have to identify the mystery substance, I could incorporate the fingerprint of the same white powdery substances to show that they each have their own unique fingerprint - even though they LOOK similar -- He was okay with that so we did the lab on Thursday.

Thursday - lab day .... We brought all kinds of white powders to work with - Aspirin vs Tylenol, Cornstarch, Baking Soda, Baking Powder and Powdered Sugar. We took 10-12 prints of each and created a data base -- then we checked on another program to show how the fingerprints were grouped together -- (all the fingerprints of the baking soda went with the other baking soda prints) -- it was pretty cool. All and All it was a very good day- we then looked at the bacteria through the raman so Randy could show us his project-- I think that it will be so beneficial - next week we are going to do the same tests but on the other smaller- portable machine to make sure that there are the same results.

Friday - Differentiated Instruction and then what's next -- The class on differentiated instruction was very helpful but I think it will be difficult to implement alot of it with so many kids in a class. Next week - we are to create a lesson plan and a video posted on You Tube about our experience here.

Mr. P, whom I work with said that it will not be difficult. I'm not sure what to do the video about. I will need more information.
Assignments this week, continue with blog, make a 5-10 minute video and up load it on You tube and begin lesson plan.

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