Karen Puracan is a science teacher at Hale Academy in Ocala, Florida. The school is a small private school with grades PreK-12th. Mrs. Puracan teaches 8th grade integrated science, 6th and 7th grade life science, 8th through 10th grade physical science and high school biology and ecology. To say she teaches a little of everything is an understatement.
Class sizes are small. Her largest class has only 11 and the smallest classes have only three students. This gives Mrs. Puracan the opportunity to really get to know each student and engage them one-on-one – something most teachers today are unable to do. This also allows time to play or “investigate” as Mrs. Puracan calls it with science.
“Since we are a private school, we have the freedom to take our time exploring things in more depth, without worrying about the test,” Mrs. Puracan explains.
Last year, Mrs. Puracan was a physical science “greenhorn” and stuck to the book. She quickly found the book was boring for both herself and her students.
The producers of the NBC show, Minute to Win It, have called our offices with questions about some of our science tricks that they’ve seen on our weekly appearances on Denver NBC affiliate, 9News. Some of our science experiments like Egg Drop and Tornado Tubes have made it on the show. Here are a few more table tricks and stunts for the producers to use in upcoming episodes -
The Egg Drop is a classic experiment that illustrates Newton’s First Law of Motion and inertia. The goal is to get the egg into the glass of water. Sound easy?
Now perch the egg atop a cardboard tube sitting in a pie pan on top of the glass of water. Sound harder? It’s easier than you think – hit the pie pan with your hand, setting it in motion. As it zips out of the way, the lip catches the cardboard tube and takes it with. The egg is not moving, it is stationary. The support comes out from under the egg so for a brief nanosecond the egg does not move, until gravity takes over and pulls it down into the glass.
I received a message from a homeschool Mom who wanted to put our new book, Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, to the ultimate test… give it to her kids! Lori’s three children are enrolled in Colorado Virtual Academy (COVA), an online public charter school, and she’s always looking for additional support materials for her curriculum. I’ll let you take a look at her review of Naked Eggs for yourself, but my favorite part was looking at all of the photos and even videos of her kids doing the experiments. Judging from what I can see in the pictures, the kitchen didn’t burn down… and that’s a good thing.
A popular activity for teachers each year is the “egg drop.” Each student gets an egg and some guidelines to make a container that will protect the egg and keep it from breaking when it is dropped from high in the air.
The teacher usually perches herself high atop the roof of the school and tosses the contraptions the kids have come up with to the ground as crowds of kids scream with delight. It’s great fun to hear the cheers and an occasional “darn!” when the egg drop engineers open their containers. This activity is a great lesson in critical thinking skills, problem solving and the physics of dropping an egg.
At Weather and Science Day on May 12th, 2010, students will test out their safe packaging skills to see if their egg will survive a 57 foot drop from the upper level of Coors Field.
Karen Puracan is a science teacher at Hale Academy in Ocala, Florida. The school is a small private school with grades PreK-12th. Mrs. Puracan teaches 8th grade integrated science, 6th and 7th grade life science, 8th through 10th grade physical science and high school biology and ecology. To say she teaches a little of everything is an understatement.
