Blog Entry 2

 On my first day of observations I had the luck of seeing Ms. Mitari's class launch hot air balloons! This was for science lesson, explaining how heat particles expand and uses the hot air balloons to explain that. The hot air balloons were made out of parchment paper and the heat source was a long cylindrical tube that expelled out heat with the fuel coming from a propane tank. The heat source was a little bit unreliable with flames sometimes shooting out of the tubes, causing some (if not most) of the hot air balloons to catch fire. I helped Ms. Mitari by moving the propane tank from side to side as the gas wouldn't transfer if it remained sitting. I also used a fire extinguisher for the first time to extinguish the hot air balloons that had caught on fire. The students made me laugh as they would cheer for their hot air balloons that were on fire and some of them asking me not to put the fire out and to have them burn just a little bit longer! Overall a really great first day! 


When we went back into the class Ms. Mitari went over the hot air balloon project by asking the students what observations they had made and what they would do differently. Ms. Mitari has her students discuss these observations amongst themselves in which she has them group together to talk about what they would have done differently. Once the time had passed Ms. Mitari had brought her classroom together to go over her science lesson plan. By observing Ms. Mitaris teaching style, I believe she uses Constructivism as a way to engage and teach her students. Most students have seen hot air balloons in action before this activity and she uses that prior experience as a way to explain how heat particles work. Students saw a real world scenario and gained some insight from that but through the lesson plan they were able to make connections that broadened there understanding of that concept. 


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