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 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.
My relatives all know that any time we are gathered around the table is a great time for me to show off my newest table tricks… Thanksgiving is no exception. But, with something like the Egg Drop it has to be just right, so why not practice with Mark Koebrich on 9News first? But, when the segment starts out with a broken egg before we even start the experiment, I start to wonder whether this was a good idea or not. In the end, Mark got the egg in the glass… thanks to Newton’s laws of inertia. But, the real trick came when I broke out my new trick. Five glasses of water, five toilet paper rolls, and, yes, five eggs to drop into the glasses… and, it was a success. The relatives will be so proud.
Check out the video to see a sneak peek of what my Thanksgiving afternoon will look like and read …
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.
