Ask a Scientist

I have waited three weeks and still have not received a response from Ask A Scientist. I cannot remember the exact question I asked them, but it was something along the lines of, "what causes some cells to divide to create identical twins, partially divide to create Siamese twins, or not divide at all?"

Modeling Earth Science

I was so excited when I read this assignment! I found a tornado machine at a garage sale that was a student’s science fair project. With all of the horrible weather and tornadoes that we have been experiencing, my students have been asking a lot of questions about them. And the best part is that it aligns with my science standards! In order for the tornado simulator to work, I needed to purchase dry ice. I finally found and ice cream place that sells it to the public. I also needed a way to educate the students about important information on Tornadoes before I demonstrated with the model. I found the perfect website at National Geographic Society (2011). This website offers an interactive lab that also displays six different learning tools that are all centered on tornadoes. Everything the students need to learn about a tornado is all included in this site. It is wonderful! The following is the lesson that I created using the the models of an interactive National Geographic website and a tornado simulator.

I was so excited to share this lesson with my students. I used a perfect, interactive website to demonstrate all of the information about tornadoes. The website was a National Geographic site called Forces of Nature: Tornadoes (2011). This website includes six different instructional parts. The first part shows a picture of a tornado with all of the basic information stating what a tornado is. The second part zooms in on the United States in the path where most tornadoes occur. The video demonstrates the movement of air needed to cause a tornado. There is also information included describing what causes a tornado. The third part demonstrates the characteristics of a tornado. After reading the informative information provided, the students may choose the level of tornado they would like to watch on the Fujita Scale, ranging from an F0 to and F5. Each scale not only demonstrates the destruction, it also states the type of damage that type of cell will create. The fourth section describes the damage that a real tornado will cause. It included details along with real videos of tornadoes and picture of their amazing destruction. The fifth part discusses how tornadoes are forecasted and also includes pictures of stations and moving satellite images of a tornado cell’s satellite imagery. The sixth and final section allows the students to create a tornado by selecting the conditions that create a tornado. After the students select the perfect conditions to create a tornado, they watch their tornado of varying intensity pass through a farm. The students can assess the damage and size of the tornado cell to determine what level the tornado was. We did this section as a class so many times that the students knew the formula by heart. Air mass one needs cold, dry air. Air mass two needs warm, moist air. The barometric pressure must quickly fall. And variable wind speeds are required.

When I showed this lesson on the Smart Board, all of the students payed close attention, especially during the part where they got to create a tornado. We kept creating the formula repeatedly until the students got to see each type of tornado. This took a while because it repeated many types before it made its way through each kind.

After the students understood all of the much needed background knowledge surrounding tornadoes. They anxiously jumped up to watch the tornado simulator model. Of course they all wanted to put the dry ice in the container and pouted when I told them they were not allowed to handle the dry ice. Once I placed the dry ice in the container, they had to figure out how to produce the tornado, based on the information they just learned. They turned the fan on and nothing happened. They realized they had to activate the dry ice by countering it with warm water. They went to get warm water to pour on the ice. It started to fog up, but it was not creating a tornado. They closed of the sides of the simulator to keep the air from coming in. This made it worse. When they let go, a tornado started to form. They just had to be a little patient for all of the ingredients to react to each other perfectly. They were so excited when the tornado started to form. They asked if they could touch the tornado cloud and of course I said yes, as long as they did not touch the dry ice or water pan.

All of the students were surrounding the model tornado in my classroom. Other students passing by in the hallway got curious and came in to see what all of the commotion was about. They were excited to watch as well. My Principal was walking by my room and also came in to see what was going on. He was amazed, too. He looked at a student and asked why this tornado was occurring and the student just looked at me! This was not even one of my students! Just a passer-by from the hallway. I quickly informed the Principal that he was not one of my students who just received the lesson. He asked who was in that class and students raised their hands. He looked at one boy and asked, "Why is this occurring?" to which the student perfectly stated, “Cold, dry air from air mass one, mixes with warm, moist air from air mass two. The barometric pressure falls and the winds show variable speeds. Then a tornado is likely to occur.” I was so proud of him! This showed my principal that they students were not only partaking in a fun activity, but also completely knew and understood all of the weather related factor necessary to create this phenomenon! He ran over to the Board Office and brought them all over to watch the Tornado simulator and students in action! I could not believe how powerful the use of a model was in my classroom!

Unfortunately, dry ice that I purchased did not last very long in my hot classroom so my later periods did not get to experience the lesson and were completely bummed about it. So I found another supplier of dry ice and bought more to perform the activity again the next day. This dry ice came in huge blocks of ice and created a much bigger and more amazing tornado than the day before. Unfortunately, I did not think to take pictures that day when the model tornado was really remarkable.

This was an amazing lesson and completely impressed not only my students, but also my Administrators all of the way up to the Superintendent! The use of good, effective models has a great affect on students learning! After the lesson was over, the students all raised their hands to ask if they could practice creating a tornado on the Smart Board using the Tornado website! They rushed up to participate and play with the website until the bell rang! I could not believe they wanted to keep learning and practicing!

In closing, this was a wonderful experience and I cannot wait to do it again next year. I am going to rely on more models to demonstrate events in front of the class more often. I hope I get lucky enough to find another old science fair projects at a garage sales this summer!