Final Project — Earthquakes at School Experiment

Level: Bachillerato / Subject area: Sciences

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My final project is a simple geology experiment designed to practice listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills.

I find experiments very effective when incorporating them into English lessons. They are visual, interactive, and effective at explaining concepts. It is also a great way to introduce new vocabulary. By showing physical objects and processes along with the vocabulary, the words become more concrete.

The following lesson is broken down into a standardized experiment.

1. Question — General discussion. Introducing new vocabulary as teacher and assistant.
2. Research — Reading and listening portion. Teacher and assistant will assist with any questions and lead review of the content.
3. Design experiment — Set up and explain the simple experiment. Have 2 students volunteer to run the experiment. One tilts the board and the other collects data.
4. Collect data — Measure the angle at which the cans slip. This is our experiment’s “earthquake”.
5. Make conclusions — Class discussion on what the experiment indicated (Human activity can influence earthquakes). Discuss the ethics of energy production.

It can be adapted in multiple ways. The difficulty level can be drastically decreased by generalizing concepts, altering the reading/listening portion, and creating simpler questions.

The focus of the experiment can also be altered. It is a science based lesson, but it also has discussions on ethics, the environment, and society. By changing the focus of the experiment and discussions, it can be more suitable for various classes. The lesson is also a great way to introduce useful vocabulary by using physical objects.

The objectives in my lesson are to practice speaking, writing, listening, and reading while introducing a new topic through a physical experiment. Students will read and listen to articles on human caused earthquakes, discuss general terms, and make predictions about the experiment. They then will oversee the experiment, complete it, make measurements, and have a discussion afterwards on the results. Students are expected to ask questions throughout the lesson, and it is encouraged.

The experiment requires the following: 1 plane (a board or anything similar), 2 cans (1 made heavier than the other by either removing the contents from one or adding coins to the other), a protractor to measure the angle at which the can slides, and soapy water. The discussions will utilize the chalkboard. A packet will be handed out to every student to follow along. It is attached in its entirety just below.

Source: Kurzgesagt. (2013, September 03). Fracking explained: Opportunity or danger. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uti2niW2BRA

Source: Bebermeyer, C. (2018). Earthquake in China Linked to Reservoir Water. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://www.slu.edu/news/2018/september/earthquake-research.php

An example of the experiment proposed above. A can rests on a board. The students will slowly lift the board and measure when it slides under various conditions: with soapy water, with more weight, with less weight, and a control group test. A higher angle of slip infers a lesser chance of an earthquake. A lower angle of slip infers the opposite.

The table above indicates the testing conditions. Students will make hypotheses about the results, and during the experiment, they will copy the results found. Using these results, we can infer under which conditions an earthquake is more likely to occur. The wet plate is used to represent fracking chemicals pumped into the ground, and the extra weight is used to represent large reservoirs of water on the surface.

The timing for the lesson is as follows:

1. Questions and discussion — 10 minutes
2. Audio section — 10 minutes
3. Reading section — 10 minutes
4. Design experiment and run experiment — 15 minutes
5. Final discussion — 10 minutes

The teacher will play a key role in leading discussions with the assistant, asking the students discussion questions, and assisting students with any confusion.

My role as an LA is to answer any vocabulary and science questions, lead the experiment by choosing student volunteers and explaining their roles, help the students in making their own conclusions, and ask questions to invoke critical thinking in the students.

The teacher and I are working to complement each other by being able to help individual students understand while leading discussion, answering questions during the listening and reading section, and running the experiment while explaining the goals and inferences from the experiment (fracking is represented by the wet board and large reservoirs are represented by added weight).

The students will participate in the introductory discussion with the current general knowledge they have about the subject, and they will answer the question: “Can humans cause earthquakes?”. They then will finish the reading and listening exercises followed by further discussion quesions. From there, student volunteers will run the experiment while their classmates make predictions and record the results. Finally, the students will make conclusions and answer questions on the ethics of producing energy.

The activities will be evaluated by the students’ participation, the completion of the listening and reading activities, and by the introductory and final discussions.

The students will know they have achieved the learning objectives if they are able to understand the content of the reading and listening, can infer the meaning of the experiment results, and use that information to create an informed position on the subject.

The lesson incorporates visual, auditory, verbal, physical, and logical sections, and it is therefore able to appeal to diverse learning styles. For students with specific learning styles, they will be able to lead the section that most appeals to them, whether that be discussions, reading, listening, speaking, or running the experiment.

For classes with varied levels of achievement among students, students can excel at different roles throughout the experiment, and they can all learn something from the lesson. Higher level students can discuss the correlation between certain human activities and the mechanics of an earthquake. They can create ethical positions based on energy consumption and discuss the pros and cons of various human activity.

Lower level students with the help of the teacher and myself can use the experiment to make conclusions about what causes the can to slip in the experiment, and conversely, what caused our in-class “earthquakes”. They will practice their reading and listening skills, pick up new vocabulary, and better understand the subject at hand.

The teacher and I will respond to different levels and learning styles by allowing students to participate in their own way in a diverse lesson. Assistance will be given throughout, but just enough for the students to understand while being challenged to think critically.

Sources:

Bebermeyer, C. (2018). Earthquake in China Linked to Reservoir Water. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://www.slu.edu/news/2018/september/earthquake-research.php

Kurzgesagt. (2013, September 03). Fracking explained: Opportunity or danger. Retrieved December 13, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uti2niW2BRA