The third week of labs had the first quiz, which was over the syllabus and the two previous labs. This is also the week that the material begins to require a more critical thinking. To start the students off on the right path, this lab covered the principles of the scientific method.
At the beginning of the lab, the teaching assistant handed out the quizzes for the students to take. Fifteen minutes were given to complete it, and during that time the teaching assistant and I walked around the students looking for possible cheaters and answering questions. Once fifteen minutes passed, the quizzes were taken up, and the teaching assistant went over the answers. When he discussed the answers to the section on scientific conversions, he revealed that he had pulled the context of a few of the questions from the review sheet. This was the same review sheet he had told students is not mandatory but highly recommended. This was another of those moments that he had created to instill the need to be prepared and go above and beyond. It will be interesting to see how many students see this incentive and take advantage of future non-mandatory work to help their studies.
The rest of the class involved a lecture and workbook pages over the scientific method, graphs, and tables, while the teaching assistant and I walked around answering questions. Once the students had completed their pages, they were allowed to do an experiment to which they would apply the scientific method. This experiment had students comparing and recording the watts used by incandescent and compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs. They then had to average the data and convert it into the dollars per year spent on supplying the electricity. The CFL bulbs proved to be much more efficient, demonstrating to the students the value of going green.
This experiment resulted in an excellent follow up to last week’s Building Green lab. They knew of greening techniques before, but now the students can see what value they have. A consecutive lab on the same subject also helped establish further connections and applications with the scientific method, and no doubt the appeal of saving money will also motivate students to go green.
