Course Description

Science Research Program – Grades 9, 10, 11, 12


Full Year – Level H: Incoming freshman and sophomore students must apply for admission to this program in January of the prior academic year. Acceptance into the program will be based on a science teacher recommendation, a written essay, and excellent academic grades.


This is an ongoing program that is taken in conjunction with the student’s regular science course. There are several tiers to the program. During Year 1 students learn the components of scientific research including the scientific method and apply these concepts in various settings including designing and conducting an authentic science research project and communicating results by participation in at least one local science fair. Students also explore various applications of science topics through field trips, guest speakers and class projects. Advanced students (Years 2-4) select their science research topic, locate an out-of-school mentor (either in industry or at a local university) and compete in a variety of science fairs including the CT State Science Fair, Southern CT Invitational Science and Engineering Fair (SCSEF) and the CT Junior Science and Humanities Symposium (CT JSHS). Advanced students pursue their selected research in depth, perform statistical analysis and compete at a number of local and/or national science fairs and competitions. In Years 2, 3, and 4 students are grouped together in a non-traditional classroom setting and are required to meet individually outside of class with their Science Research Instructor biweekly to review individual goals and assess progress. All students participate in the culminating annual activity, Amity’s Science Symposium.


Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Middle School Outreach (5.24.11)

The Amity High School Science Research students visited the Amity Middle School - Orange campus - on Tuesday May 24, 2011. High School students used their DemoKits to explain concepts related to materials and nano-science. These kits were first created for the NOVA Making Stuff Outreach effort at Yale University.

SRP students, please post the following information:

Which DemoKit were you responsible for? Specifically, state the kit name and give a brief description of the underlying concept(s) involved.

Who was in your group? Were you able to adhere to your script or did you mostly improvise during your conversations with middle school students?

What was the most enjoyable part of working with the kit (your perspective first, then student perspectives)?

What part of your kit was lacking and could have been better prepared?

What did you create for pre-activities and assesments?

How far along are you and your group with your Digital story? How, exactly, are you planning to tell your story line using this medium? What challenges must you overcome to accomplish this?

What was the highlight of the outreach field trip?

Middle school students, please post the following:

Which Demonstrations did you visit (list all 3 or more)?

Which Demonstration did you enjoy the most and why?

Which Demonstration did you enjoy the least and why?

Were the supplemental activities fun and/or useful (eg. puzzles etc...)?

What other supplemental activities would you like to see to help you learn more about materials and nano-science?

If you had to be evaluated on your learning, what would you like the assesment to look like? (Eg. vocabulary quiz, powerpoint quiz (fill in blank), multiple choice quiz, essay questions regarding your learning, project etc...)?

34 comments:

  1. My group used the electromagnet kit. Electromagnets are magnets that use current to create a magnetic field. We coiled a copper wire around an iron nail and used a battery to apply electricity to the wire and created a magnetic field. Will and Jen were also in my group. We did not follow our script but tried to talk to the students based on what they already knew and then filled in the gaps were needed. I really liked teaching the kids about the fun topic and knowing that I made a difference even if it is small in the knowledge of the students. One thing I would like to do to better prepare is precut the wire and tape to make it faster and easier to let the kids try it out for themselves. We made for pre-activities that the students seemed excided use. Our photo story is currently in the planning stage but hopefully with all the new pictures will be complete. The highlight of the trip was that I got to work with middle school students and expand their knowledge.

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  2. The Demo Kit that I was responsible for was the Oobleck demo kit which wasn’t necessarily a real demo kit since we made it ourselves. Basically, what we did, was mix cornstarch together with water and made Oobleck. Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that its viscosity is different from that of a Newtonian fluid. It flows slowly and irregularly like lava or ketchup. Oobleck is also special in the way that it does not have a certain state. It is a liquid and solid at the same time. As more stress is applied to Oobleck, the more solid it becomes. With that said, we put the Oobleck on a speaker cone and played a song with a lot of bass, so the stress from the sound wave vibrations would put stress on the Oobleck, making it both a liquid and a solid, making it dance. Peter and Ehsan were both in my group. We didn’t really adhere to our script since our script was mostly for a presentation in front of a lot of people. We mostly improvised but still put in many of the scientific concepts into our improvisations. The most enjoyable part of the demo kits was seeing the middle schoolers’ positive reactions to the Oobleck. Our kit could have been better if we were able to prepare it faster. Since our kit had a lot of components, it took us a while to get completely set up. Four our digital story, we haven’t gotten very far. We’re planning on making up a story to go along with the scientific concepts of Oobleck. The highlight of the trip was definitely working with the middle schoolers. I really enjoyed this trip and I look forward to going to the Bethany middle school and presenting to my brother!

    Andrew Chen

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  3. The Demo Kit that I was responsible for was the Oobleck demo kit, which we made ourselves. The first part of our Demo Kit was making our oobleck; we took 2 parts corn starch and 1 part water and mixed the two of them together by hand. Our Kit dealt with physical properties of liquids, specifically viscosity and Newtonian and Non-Newtonian fluids, and oobleck showed how extremely highly viscous fluids respond to stress. Peter and Andrew were both in my group. We didn’t really adhere to our script since our script was designed for a classroom style presentation, not for students that were constantly coming and going. The most enjoyable part of our kit was mixing the oobleck and having an excuse to blast our speakers really loud. Also watching the middle students’ reactions was kind of cool, but not really the highlight of my experience. Our kit could have been better if we were able to prepare it faster, and if we could get all of our equipment to work properly. Since our kit had a lot of components, it took us a while to get completely set up and when the speakers didn’t work, one of us had to hold a wire for the entire demonstration. We haven’t really gotten far in our Digital Storytelling at all. We’re not really sure how we’re going to do it either. To overcome this problem, it might help to start the Digital Storytelling. The highlight of this field trip was nomnom-ing on Munchkins in the back of the bus, and watched Satish getting owned by the bus driver after he said that her bus “smelled like ass,” even though it definitely did.

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  4. I was responsible for the Electromagnet kit. Electromagnets are magnets that use current to create a magnetic field. We coiled a copper wire around an iron nail (a solenoid) and used a battery to apply electricity to the wire and created a magnetic field. Jen and Jordan were in my group. We mostly improvised because Jen and Jordan had already done many presentations using the kit and I take AP Physics so I knew quite a bit about electromagnets. The most enjoyable part of working with the kit was making the actual electromagnet. Its cool that you can make a magnet using household items. I believe that the students liked the hands on experience making the magnet as well. We need to precut the wire because we wasted a lot of time trying to get the wire to the correct length and handed out to students. We created word scrambles, crossword puzzles, and word searches as pre-activities and assessments. Many students took the information sheet as well as the activities/assessments. We are planning our photo story as of right now but we should be able to begin working on it soon. We are planning on using pictures and video to tell the story. We have a lack of cameras so it was hard to get videos and pictures for it. The highlight of the outreach field trip was meeting a kid who already knew a lot about electromagnets and talking to him. It was interesting to talk to him.

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  6. Yesterday, we went to the middle school to present our NOVA DemoKits to our younger peers. I specifically worked on the Electromagnet: Temporary Attraction kit with Will Dixon and Jordan Henck. Together we presented the concept of electromagnetism. We explained that the current of the battery when in contact with a copper wire wound around an iron nail creates magnetic field. While presenting, we mostly improvised our conversation depending on the students’ familiarity with electromagnets. We supplemented our presentation with a variety of word searches, crossword puzzles, and word scrambles. That said, I feel for the most part our group was very well prepared, but if anything I think we could have prepared our DemoKit by pre-cutting pieces of sandpaper and setting up nails with wire. I feel that this could have made our presentation a bit more fluid. All in all, I enjoyed interacting with middle school students and sharing fun science. I found it especially neat talking to this one boy who knew a lot about the technicalities behind electromagnets.

    In terms of our digital story telling, our group is planning to use pictures and either video or some narration (sort of like Ms. Day’s Amity Science Symposium video.) We have not yet begun to construct the actual Digital story, but we plan to begin in the very near future.

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  7. Zelun Wang

    Our group, consisting of Elliad, Helen, JZ, me, and Weison (not present) and we presented ferrofluids. Ferrofluids are liquids that respond to magnetic fields, making them very useful in various applications. Nanoscale iron particles suspended in a surfactant allow the fluid to be manipulated by strong neodymium magnets. We attempted to create our own ferrofluid with oil and macroscale iron filings, with similar effects.

    We did not go through the script, which included introductions on materials science and smart materials. However, we did mention every fact in the script about ferrofluids themselves.

    The most enjoyable part was seeing some kids that are clearly very interested in the topic, especially when we showed them the real ferrofluid samples. It is nice knowing that we are interesting kids in STEM areas of study. I think the students most enjoyed playing with the fluids and magnets.

    One problem we encountered was that the iron filings spilled acidentally. However, 5 minutes of cleanup with the strong magnet resovled that issue.

    We handed out a word search with relevant vocabulary for the preactivity.

    We have a lot of images and videos that we can use for our digital storytelling. THe exact status of the project is unclear, but our Technology Expert surly has it under control.

    Highlight of the trip-----munchkins and seeing 7th graders we know

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  8. I was responsible for the kit: Diffraction- Scattering Light. This kit had to do with displaying diffraction through ICE transform slides. The slides contained patterns that would show Fraunhouer Diffraction Patterns and diffraction of light in general.
    I worked with Satish on the DemoKits, and during the middle school presentation, we had to improvise as we did not bring a copy of the script.
    My favorite part of executing these experiments was being able to play with laser pointers as they are fun to play with.
    Probably the thing that could have used the most work was the presentation itself. We were able to get students involved in the experiment yet the presentation of background information and the material could have been improved as our presentations did not take enough time and we had too much extra time that we did not know what to do with.
    We created a crossword puzzle, a word search, and a glossary of general terms for a preactivity. We also made a post activity that was an assessment on the presentation that had a couple of questions yet students didn’t really take these papers.
    For the digital story, all we have are pictures and videos of our group presenting by ourselves and with the middle school kids. Yet, we haven’t started on the story itself. We want to have our story tell background information of our topic and then show how we did the experiment and the implications of it. Personally, I don’t think there will be many challenges in doing this.
    The highlight of the trip was being able to present my demo kit to middle school students who are really interested in the topic and are perhaps considering pursuing this Science Research Program in high school.

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  9. I was responsible for the “rock candy” demokit, or the Sugar Nucleation station. This kit demonstrated the effects of heating and supersaturating a solution and letting the solute precipitate out into a solid after cooling.
    My group consisted of me, Joanie, and Danielle. Unfortunately Joanie and I could not make the field trip, so Danielle presented alone. I think she did follow our script pretty well and handed out our pre-activities. We prepared a word search and a description of the demokit to hand out to the middle-schoolers.
    The most enjoyable part was making the rock candy, but unfortunately it was a length process. Our presentation probably was not as dynamic or well-received because we were not able to create rock candy right then and there, but we did our best to demonstrate the process.
    Our group is not sure yet how we will tell our digital story, but we will probably read our script and use that as our narration when we take a video of the actual demonstration.

    Zizi

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  10. Ming Zhao said:

    I was responsible for the Orange Batteries demo kit. When my group was working on this, we actually expanded the experiment to include kiwis, bananas, lemons, and apples in addition to oranges. Emily Feng, Shaunuk Pandit, and Qi Yan were also in my group. In our experiment, we constructed “batteries” out of the different fruits using alligator clips and a voltmeter. The electrons flowed from the fruit into the wires, into the voltmeter, and back into the fruit in a series circuit. Free electrons were able to flow through the wires because of the acidity of the fruit. Hydronium ions, the cause of the sourness, carry positive charge, which indicates that there are unbounded electrons carrying negative charges to balance the positive charges out.

    While presenting, I mostly improvised, but followed the basic structure and organization of the script. I did not memorize my script, but explained the basic concepts outlined inside. The most enjoyable part of working with this kit was comparing which fruits created the highest voltage. I hypothesized that the oranges would, but it turned out that the kiwi fruit produced the highest voltage across the circuit. I think the middle school children enjoyed poking metal electrodes into fruits the most.

    Our kit could have been better prepared if all of our members talked to the middle school kids. Unfortunately one member was absent and another one simply did not wish to convey his knowledge to the middle school kids.

    For pre-activity assignments, we created a word search, a matching game, and a crossword using terminology in our script. For our digital storytelling, we took several pictures, but our technology person has so far refused to share them with us. We plan on telling a story in a movie with pictures showing up and music in the background. Our voice-over in the movie will explain what we did.

    The highlight of the outreach field trip was seeing what all the other groups chose as their demo kits.

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  11. Ming Zhao said:

    I was responsible for the Orange Batteries demo kit. When my group was working on this, we actually expanded the experiment to include kiwis, bananas, lemons, and apples in addition to oranges. Emily Feng, Shaunuk Pandit, and Qi Yan were also in my group. In our experiment, we constructed “batteries” out of the different fruits using alligator clips and a voltmeter. The electrons flowed from the fruit into the wires, into the voltmeter, and back into the fruit in a series circuit. Free electrons were able to flow through the wires because of the acidity of the fruit. Hydronium ions, the cause of the sourness, carry positive charge, which indicates that there are unbounded electrons carrying negative charges to balance the positive charges out.

    While presenting, I mostly improvised, but followed the basic structure and organization of the script. I did not memorize my script, but explained the basic concepts outlined inside. The most enjoyable part of working with this kit was comparing which fruits created the highest voltage. I hypothesized that the oranges would, but it turned out that the kiwi fruit produced the highest voltage across the circuit. I think the middle school children enjoyed poking metal electrodes into fruits the most.

    Our kit could have been better prepared if all of our members talked to the middle school kids. Unfortunately one member was absent and another one simply did not wish to convey his knowledge to the middle school kids.

    For pre-activity assignments, we created a word search, a matching game, and a crossword using terminology in our script. For our digital storytelling, we took several pictures, but our technology person has so far refused to share them with us. We plan on telling a story in a movie with pictures showing up and music in the background. Our voice-over in the movie will explain what we did.

    The highlight of the outreach field trip was seeing what all the other groups chose as their demo kits.

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  12. I was responsible for the silly putty and gak kit. Like all the kits, it deals with materials science. This kit focused mostly around the concepts of tensile strength and elasticity. Elasticity is the materials ability to stretch while its tensile strength is its ability to resist stress like pulling, pushing and bending without breaking. I was in a group with Eeman and Isabella however, only Eeman was able to go to the middle school with me. For much of the demonstration, particularly the introduction, we were able to adhere to the script very well. I liked the kit because it does a very good job of illustrating the concept of tensile strength and elasticity while still remaining fun, and I know all the students enjoyed taking home their silly putty. An improvement could have been having all the materials pre-packaged to the proper quantities beforehand, it took a while to measure out all of the materials for every new batch, especially with all the kids gathering around. For pre activities we had some word searches, discussions about tensile strength, elasticity and materials science and had them play with play-doh and moon sand before making their own silly putty like substance. As for the digital story we have a ton of photos and video for presentation. We will incorporate this along with narration for our digital stories. I think one of our biggest challenges will be dividing up the work and deciding what footage to use. One of the highlights of the trip for me was seeing everyone I know from the middle school.

    Thomas Meehan

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  13. I was responsible for the GAK and Silly Putty DemoKit. In this kit we had to teach the students about polymers, tensile strength, and elasticity. T.J. and Izabela were both in my group, but Izabela was not able to attend due to another field trip. I tended to improvise during my presentation, but I was able to cover all of the key topics. The most enjoyable experience was seeing the kids understand what materials science is. For the students, they definitely enjoyed playing with the Silly Putty. In order to improve our kit; we could have used a beaker to measure out the water and the sodium borate. I spent a lot of time using a tiny one ounce beaker to measure the materials. Not only was this tedious, it was also ineffective. We created a game of memory using key terms from our presentation as well as a crossword and word search. T.J. is planning the photo story. We plan on using video and pictures taken from the field trip and the outreach day at Yale. The highlight of the field trip was going back to my middle school, as it was the first time I went back since graduating.

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  14. Ming said:

    Sorry, I think I posted twice. It didn't show up the first time... technology is very irritating this morning.

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  15. I was responsible for the Orange Batteries demo kit in which galvanic cells were made from fruits. Pieces of copper and zinc were used as electrodes where the acid in the fruits stripped the electrons off of one electrode and it traveled up the other electrode creating a negative flow of electrons we call electricity.
    I was in a group with Qi Yan and Ming Zhao. We did not adhere to the script at all because the script was made for a younger audience and these were 7th graders.
    The most enjoyable part of teaching 7th graders about the orange batteries was when Qi had to present because he didn’t want to and was forced into it by a teacher.
    I think that that was most lacking was our group because nobody wanted to present and Ming and I just took turns the whole time.
    We had a word search and a crossword but not many of the kids took them.
    We have not yet started the photostory and we need to get pictures first.
    The highlight of my day was when the kiwi made more than .5 volts.

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  16. I my group I was with Jennifer Zho. We were responsible for the demo kit Calcite Crystals. This kit included the activity of running calcite crystals over a piece of paper and seeing double! It showed and taught us about biofringence. We did not adhere to our script as it was impractical to have to. It was more of a improve script we made up on the spot. It was much better because we were thus able to focus on the kids understanding of the process we were explaining. The most enjoyable part of working with the kit was running the crystal over the paper to see it dibble. The children thought that was pretty neat as well. I felt that we were extremely prepared, if not over prepared, to present our kits. For our pre activity we created a word search and a photo activity that we used and it worked to our advantage. We did not use are after assessment because after we were done explaining the project, the kids were pretty much ready to move on to the next experiment. We have not yet started to work on our photo story but have a lot of video and digital footage to use. We are planning to tell about the process we went through to try and understand out kit all the way up to presenting it to the children. We must overcome the immense challenge of navigating and figuring out photo story. The highlight for me was exploring the other middle school.

    ~Samantha Austin

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  17. Tanay Lathia
    I was involved with the demo “Stress in Balloon Inflation.” In this demo, we had students blow up a balloon and talk about how it gets easier to inflate over time. This happens because the balloons, which are an elastomer, can behave in two ways. At first it inflates slowly because you are putting a lot of stress in the balloon and the size doesn’t increase. Here it behaves elastically. Then, it gets easier to inflate and it acts plastically. We also explained what happens in the balloon on a molecular level, by describing what happens to the polymer chains. David Powers and I did this presentation at the middle school. We mostly adhered to the script, however this got monotonous after a while. Therefore, we sometimes switched roles and also did a little improvising. To me, the most enjoyable aspect of the kit was the fact that it explained something so simple, such as a balloon. I thought it was fascinating because it is not science content that we will never have to use. The students just enjoyed getting free balloons and playing with them. To improve the demo, we could have talked about other aspects of balloons and science. For example, if the demo included what would happen if balloons were put in liquid nitrogen or if we discussed static electricity, the students would learn more and be more engaged. Our pre assessments were a word search with words that corresponded with a cross-word puzzle. For our digital story, David and I have gathered many pictures and videos. In addition, we have brainstormed the messages that we want to get across, and have begun to write our script. We plan to have pictures and videos overlapped by our voices. However, we must find a way to convey the content so that the audience can stay engaged. The best part of the field trip was the food!

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  18. Jen Maruna
    I was responsible for the polarizing sugar (how sweet it is) Demo kit. In the kit, we used polarizing sheets to bend the light and make plain sugar syrup reflect rainbows. Lamisa Mannan and Cindy Guo were in my group. We improvised most of the time because one of the members of the group couldn’t make it to the field trip. The most enjoyable part of working with the kit was working with my group. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot. We weren’t really prepared because one of our group members wasn’t there so we had to improvise. We made a crossword puzzle and a word search as our pre-activities. We haven’t started our Digital story yet. The highlight of this field trip was sharing out information with the 7th graders and showing them how fun science can be.

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  19. I was responsible for the demo kit titled, “Stress in Balloon Inflation.” This kit concentrated on the properties of the polymers that make up a balloon as the balloon is inflated. Firs we asked students to inflate a balloon and to take note of the difficulty at the start of inflation. We then explained that at first the balloon is hard to inflate because the polymers are acting elastically but as the balloon gets bigger they begin to act plastically and thus become easier to inflate. Also, on the molecular level the polymers in the balloon are twisted and when some tension is applied they uncoil and align allowing the balloon to stretch. Tanay Lathia worked with me to present this demo. As a whole we were able to follow our script however at times we improvised to make it more interesting and fun. To me the most enjoyable part of working with the kit was explaining the complex science behind such a simple thing as inflating a balloon. However, the students didn’t seem as interested in the science as they were with playing with the balloons. In our kit the only thing that could have been better prepared would be the script. We should have tried to make it slightly more interesting to grab the attention of more students. Also it would probably be a good idea to give students a balloon after we present instead of before so as to avoid distractions. My group had two pre-activities which were a word search and a cross-word puzzle. As for our digital story, we have collected many pictures and videos and have planned out all the important information we hope to convey. As a whole the field trip was fun but my favorite part was the munchkins.
    -David Powers

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  20. My group was responsible for paper clip fatigue. This was where paper clips were bent until they broke which demonstrated how metals fatigue instead of lasting forever. Ben Feola was also in this group. We both stayed to the script. Although this was mostly true, we did sometimes improvise while speaking. Working with the students was a very enjoyable experience. They seemed quite interested and often volunteered to be able to bend the paperclips themselves. The kit itself was missing only one thing. That being general interest. Everyone wanted to know, just for the sake of learning, but didn’t seem like it was very fun to them. For pre-activities, we had a word search and crossword puzzle to test their prior knowledge. We haven’t exactly started our Digital Story. What we have done, however, is starting aquiring pictures and thinking about what information we will say. The best part of the field trip was knowing that the students were learning!
    -Ben Staniewicz

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  21. I was responsible for the Polarization of Sugar: How Sweet it is demo. This demo demonstrated birefringence, dispersion, and the polarization effects on light. Jen Maruna and Lamisa Mannan are in my group for this demo kit. We mostly improvised our script and conversations with the audience because one of our members of this demo was absent on the day. The most enjoyable part was actually demonstrating what our demo did. I believe that the audience learned something new and were surprised with results of our demo kit. For instance, they all exclaimed “cool” when they saw the sugars turned into a rainbow of colors. Our scripts were lacking. We could have practiced it more before presenting. We created a survey for pre activities and a word search and crossword for our post activities. We haven’t gotten started on our digital stories yet. We are planning to tell our storyline by presenting the experiment with recordings of other students. We will get several people to try the experiment themselves and record it. The highlight of this fieldtrip was that we shared new information with the students and showed that science can be fun.

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  22. I was responsible for the orange batteries. The acids in the fruit cause a pressure difference in the fruit, so therefore voltage is created. So once the wires were attached, the electrons would move from the fruit through the voltmeter and back. Shaunak Pandit and Ming Zhao were in my group. We improvised our conversations as the script only works when there is one group and not 20 groups. There could have been a light bulb to make it more interesting. People do not really understand the relationship between electricity and voltage but if you showed them a light bulb glowing brighter or dimmer then they would have a better sense of what which fruit causes more electricity. We created a word search, cross word and a memory game. We have the pictures ready for the Digital story. We will have a video of the pictures and then a narration to go along with the video. A challenge we must overcome is finding a program to create the story. The munchkins were the highlight of the field trip.
    Qi Yan

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  23. I was responsible for the pre-activities and a large portion of the presentation. Our project was with ferrofluids. Liquids with iron filings suspended in them to behave like a liquid most of the time, but when but next to a magnet behave like a solid. Zelun, Helen, Jennifer, and Weison were in my group. We improvised our conversations as the script only works when there is one organized group at a time and not different people coming up at different times. Our station worked very well and there is not much to improve. The only thing I could think of to improve it further would to have more real ferrofluid instead of the very small amount we have. We created a word search, mix and match, and a game quizzing some of the information. I believe out digital story is making good progress and is almost completed. A challenge we must overcome is getting everyone in the group familiar with the digital story. The highlight of the field trip was being able to leave school to spend time with good friends while still being able to teach and learn about interesting things.

    Elliad

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  24. The DemoKit I was responsible for was Diffusion. The point of this experiment was to show how atoms spread out from higher concentrations to lower concentration. This can be shown when food dye is put into water in a Petri dish in one spot. Brian L. and Edward H. were both in my group although only Brian and I attended the field trip to the middle school. We both looked at our script before presenting and mostly improvised with our conversations with the middle school students. The most enjoyable part with working with the kit was when adding the food coloring to the water in the Petri dish and seeing all the color. The students agreed that putting in color into the water and also mixing colors was quite fun. The part of my kit that was lacking and could have been better prepared was the fact that we gave our pre-activities after the students played with my main diffusion experiment. For my pre-activities I had made a crossword puzzle, a word splash, and showing the students that perfume atoms spread out in the air. In relation to my group’s digital story, we have a lot of video and pictures to use and also have a script for the movie. We need more interview film and we also are planning to tell our story as if it were a lesson plan. The highlight of the outreach field trip was the ability to spread fun science to other classrooms and grades.
    Jared L

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  25. I was responsible for the ferrofluids demokit. A ferrofluid is a magnetic liquid that reacts to magnetic fields. It is mostly used in car brakes, speaker systems, and is currently being engineered into spacecrafts. We were looking at how ferrofluids controlled to change; for example, when exposed to the neodymium magnet, the solution became more of a solid than a liquid, easily manipulated. We created our own ferrofluid with macro iron filings and oil. However, we had also gotten a sample from CRISP of real ferrofluid made of nanoparticle filings that worked much better. The ferrofluids group consisted of Zelun, Helen, Elliad, Weison, and myself. During the conversation with the middle schoolers, we mostly improvised to try and keep the presentation exciting. Some of them had short attention spans and we needed to keep them entertained so couldn’t repeat information the previous groups had already explained, i.e what material science is and what a smart material is able to do. We tried our best to give every aspect of information on ferrofluids in an easily understood manner. The most enjoyable part, from my own perspective and the students, was playing with the ferrofluid. It was really interesting to see how the fluid reacted to the different types of magnets and how you could control the fluid. The part of the kit that was lacking was probably the fact that we couldn’t try to prepare a real ferrofluid, perhaps using ink toner, and do it in front of the kids. I think that it would have attracted more attention and just been more enjoyable for both the group and the kids. For pre-activites, we created a word search and word match of relevant terms regarding ferrofluids. For the assessment, we had a stack of question on note cards to ask the middle schoolers, however, they weren’t very responsive so we didn’t really use them. The digital story is currently being handled by our tech expert, Helen. We already have the majority of the digital story accomplished, which explains how the ferrofluid was made. We are probably going to add a little more detail. We might even do a voice-over! But that’s up to our tech expert, Helen, to decide. The highlight of this trip was definitely talking to the middle schoolers and seeing their reactions to how the ferrofluid worked! Oh, and also the food and singing on the bus ride back. What would have made the trip better? Pizza =P

    Jennifer Zhuang

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  26. Our demo kit dealt with Calcite crystals, or Iceland spar. The title of our kit was "Seeing double", and we used the calcite crystals to show the process of birefringence. during the process of Birefringence, the light beam which passes through the calcite crystal split into two rays from it's original single beam. However, when the polarizing sheet was covered over the crystal, the ray of light reverted back to it's original single beam.

    My group was made up of myself and Samantha Austin. We didn't glance at our script during the whole presentation, simply because the age group it was intended for wasn't middle school ages. Therefore, we mostly improvised throughout the whole presentation, simply because we knew the key points we had to hit.

    Well, in my perspective, the best part of working on my kit was discovering that although the Polaroid sheet was supposed to work only on the projector, it ended up working fine without it. The students probably enjoyed seeing the crystal magically split words into two.

    I think that the part that was lacking in our presentation was interaction. We didn't really attempt to engage the audience at all, and I think they might have had a little bit more fun and learned more.

    For our pre-activity we had a "guess what these have in common" game with the students, and as a post-activity word search. As an assessment, we had a quiz prepared. Another one of our activities was to have the students act out what was happening, but the area was too crowded.

    To be honest, we haven't even started to work on our Digital story. We plan to start off with the person who developed the first understanding of birefringence, and then show some demonstrations. I don't think we have any challenges to overcome.

    The highlight? I suppose my favorite part was all the energy that flowed out of people! Everyone was happy, hyper, and just entertaining themselves and others. When I arrived at school, I was dead tired, but as soon as we arrived at the middle school, all the energy got me excited as well.
    ZHU J.

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  27. T.J., Eemon, and I were responsible for the demo kit Silly Putty and GAK. It pretty much detailed elasticity and tensile strength in different materials. We would explain what elasticity and tensile strength is and how it differs in various materials. I didn’t attend the middle school outreach because I had other obligations to attend to, however the digital story is coming along rather well. We didn’t take any photos or videos from the NOVA event or the middle school outreach, so we’ll go on Ms.Day’s website and find pictures there. For pre-activities we had cross-word puzzles, word-searches, a matching game, all of which dealt with our project. For the post-activity, we played freeze-dance, and the kids who were still dancing had to answer a question about the demo-kit.
    -Izabela Banka

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  28. I was responsible for the Sugar Crystal Nucleation DemoKit. The main concept was exploring the science behind making rock candy. The students learned the difference between solutes and solvents, and they learned about why hot water can hold more dissolved sugar than cold water, and therefore recrystallization occurs when the mixture is cooled. Zizi Yu and Joanie Kim were in my group, but neither of them were able to come to the middle school, so I mostly improvised during my conversations with the students. Our kit was not that much fun to work with since it could not really be demonstrated, but I thought the most enjoyable part was explaining the interesting chemistry concepts behind a candy that most people don’t think about. The students seemed to enjoy learning about how they could make it for themselves at home. Our kit was lacking in several materials, but in this case there wasn’t much we could do about it since some of the materials would not be appropriate for a middle school classroom setting (the hot plate, for example). The main activity/assessment was a word search with related terms. While the students worked on it, I quizzed them on the meanings of the terms. Our group hasn’t started the digital story yet. We are planning to either take a video of us going through the entire experiment, or illustrating the chemical processes that occur during the course of the experiment. The main obstacle is lack of resources and direction in terms of how it should be done. I think the highlight of the outreach field trip was seeing the middle school students getting excited about the cool experiments that were being demonstrated, and how much fun the two groups had interacting with each other.
    -Danielle Eldracher

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  29. My DemoKit was called Fun with Ferrofluids. In this kit, we explored the ferromagnetic properties of ferrofluid and experimented with different types of magnets with the ferrofluids. Our group had five people: Elliad, Zelun, Weison, Jen Z, and myself. During our conversations with the middle school students, we only used the second half of our script because the first half of the script was way too formal for the middle school students to understand. The most enjoyable part of working with the kit was experimenting with the different types of oils and trying to figure out why our homemade ferrofluid didn’t work precisely how it was supposed to work. For the students, I think the most enjoyable part of working with the kit was being able to use the magnet to manipulate and move the suspended iron filings in the ferrofluid. Our kit was lacking in how we could have tried making the actual ferrofluid ourselves to develop a better understanding of how it actually works. We could have been better prepared by figuring out who was going to say what for our script. For our pre-activities, we made a word search, word scramble, a powerpoint, and a photostory. However we were unable to use both the powerpoint and the photostory because of technological difficulties. For our assessment, we had a short quiz that we asked verbally to the participants. Our group already has a photostory. The photostory outlines how we went about to make the ferrofluids. To add to it, we could add a voice in the background and add pictures from the middle school to the powerpoint.
    -Helen Zhao

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  30. I did not go to the middle school unfortunately. I am sure that the experience was great and that the teaching by our students was great. I instead, went to New York City. It was a Latin field trip to the Pompeii exhibit at the Discovery musuem, and the Metropolitan Art Musuem. However, I contributed to my group by helping them with inventory, created the script, and made sure someone took my lines from the script. My group's demokit was the Ferrofluids project, which was the best demokit overall when we were judged.
    -Weison Lin

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  31. The demokit that I was responsible for was “Diffusion”. The concepts involved were diffusion, or movement of atoms, along with what concentration is.
    Edward Hochmann and Jared Lowenthal were in my group. I mostly improvised during my conversations with the middle school students. Mainly, I tried to format my words and body language based on the students’ interest.
    The most enjoyable part was inserting drops of food dye into the Petri dishes and watching them slowly expand. I believe the students enjoyed this part as well since they were able to mix up various colors in addition to being able to clearly see diffusion taking place.
    The after-activity activity was most lacking since it was just a packet of bland word searches and a word splash. Nothing lacked in terms of how prepared my group was, except for when we almost ran out of clean Petri dishes since we did not anticipate such a large number of middle school students to come to our station.
    For a pre-activity, we sprayed a perfume bottle into the air and gave the perfume particles a minute to diffuse over to where the middle school students were standing. Our assessment was a packet with a crossword puzzle and a word splash that required the students to remember the terms in our glossary, which were of invaluable background knowledge. There was also a brief quiz in the packet that tested student understanding of diffusion.
    My group has pretty much finished our PowerPoint/script for the digital story. We are planning to do a simple voiceover of our video. In the voiceover, we will explain what is going on in the video and at the same time will explain the concept of diffusion. A challenge that we will have to overcome is keeping any unnecessary information to a minimum but at the same time ensuring that the digital story is not too short.
    The ability to teach middle school students about something that is present in their lives all the time but is rarely observed.
    -Brian Liang

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  32. I was responsible for the Polarizing Sugar (How Sweet it Is) DemoKit. This kit illustrated how light can be bent, refracted, etc. using polarized sheets and corn syrup. Jen Maruna and Cindy Guo were in my group. I was not on the trip, but they mostly improvised during their conversations. I think the most enjoyable part of our project was when the light turns the syrup into rainbow colors, although I did not see what the middle school students enjoyed most. Our script could have been better prepared, and my group members could’ve kept better track of the script. We had prepared a crossword puzzle and a word search for our pre-activities/assessments. We haven’t started our digital storytelling yet.

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  33. Emily Feng:
    I was the team leader for the orange batteries kit. We used the acidity in oranges (and later, different types of fruits) to create a very weak wet battery. Using different types of metal electrodes, we could create an electron potential between the two metals and measure the resulting current (after creating a closed circuit between the two) with a voltmeter.
    The other group members doing this project were Qi Yan, Ming Zhao and Shaunuk Pandit. I wrote the script, but only one person delivered it: Ming. I only saw Ming deliver the presentation once. However, I can say that she adhered loosely to the flow of the script but could improvise based on her knowledge and tastes during each step of the presentation.
    I found that the most enjoyable part of working with the kit was figuring out for myself how everything worked. Before we even got to show the project off to the middle school kids, we had to work out for ourselves the exact mechanisms of the orange battery and begin experimenting on which method was best to show off to others.
    I think however, that the one area in which we needed improvement was involving more members of the group. While the guys in the group did fine in terms of preparing the orange batteries and figuring out the kit, they did not help present the project to viewers, leaving Ming to deliver the script. While she did a good job, the presentation could have been more engaging if more people had delivered the presentation.

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  34. Emily Feng (continued):
    For pre-activities and assessments, we created a crossword search with related terminology, a matching game with images of components and concepts vital to the kit, and a game of musical chairs to simulate electrical flow.
    Now, it is time to begin putting together the Digital Story. At the moment, Qi is putting together various multimedia (images, videos, sound) into a video in some software program he has while I am writing the script to narrate the video. I think it would be best if all the group members did part of the narration. The video will be a visual summary or journey through the steps we took to bring the kit to fruition. The largest obstacle to completing a video is always organization, because there are so many components to a video that all have to be coordinated with one another.

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