Week 1 Day 5

Yay Friday! We are almost done with our first week working with UNT RET. It has been a lot of fun so far. The resources UNT has made available to us are impressive and the learning experience is exciting. The group that I was assigned to has definitely become a team with each of us taking point on different tasks. Each Friday we are supposed to take a small step back from our project so that we can look at it as teachers instead of students. The whole idea here is two fold. One is to get us back into research mode to remind us what it's like being a student and to sharpen our research skills. The other is to produce useful lessons that we can take back into our class rooms. That is a big part of what we are doing on Fridays. It is not the whole thing, though. If all we did was sit and write lesson plans there is a solid chance we would go a little crazy. So, here is what we are working on today...

We started the day with a quick briefing on the format and style that RET would like our lesson plans to fit. Pretty standard, so no worries there. Then they let us know that they would like us to create a web page for our lesson plans and a blog to chronicle our journey. Surprise! Team 1 was already all over that! Actually it wasn't a surprise. Every one was pretty aware that we were doing that. The good news for me was that I got to lead a quick workshop this morning giving the other teachers a run down on how to set up a blog using Blogger. I had a blast doing it and every one seemed to get something out of it so that is good. We even had some good discussion on how we could utilize blogger with our students as a form of presentation. It would allow them to keep a journal of their activities through out the process of a project (much like we are doing here), it would let the teachers keep track of how they were progressing and it would allow the various student groups to see how their peers are doing and to provide feedback through comments. I spent a good portion of the rest of the day tweaking our blog and trying to get all the logos permanently displayed for the organizations that have made this experience possible (turns out that is way harder than I expected) and typing up our posts. I have also been bouncing around from group to group helping put out fires as other teams pull their blogs together and start uploading content. As they come online I will add them to the RET Blog list on the right side bar of our blog. That isn't all that has been going on, though!

Place holders for our set up

As a group we met before lunch to tinker with our design for the model stream we plan on building in our class rooms. Our current plan is to use the free bins we got yesterday (see the day 4 blog). We are thinking the best idea is to have the bins connect by long lengths of either pvc or gutter and keep the angle as shallow as possible so there is still flow but not so strong that small fish and snails couldn't travel up the current if they felt like it. Exactly how steep the channels can be is going to take some trial and error but we are currently thinking we will have the first tub 3 inches of the ground, the second 2 inches off the ground, the third 1 inch of the ground and the last one on the ground. See the pattern?

We worked all that out using random objects to make models. That nonsense looked something like this:

Here we go... We start with tub number 1. It is three inches off the flat surface that it rests on. There is a channel that will go from tub 1 to tub 2 and we are shooting for an angle of about 5-10 degrees. There will also be a small tube feeding water into tub 1 from a pump, but we will come back to that later.

Tub two and three are similar. Tub two will be 2 inches off the flat surface and will have a channel coming in from tub 1 and one going out to tub 3. Tub 3 will be an inch off the flat surface and will have a channel coming in from tub 2 and one going out to tub 3.

Tub 4 is the end of the line for the channels that will become our riffles. There is a channel running in from tub 3, but not one going out to tub 1. this way there is a beginning and an end to our "stream" and the fish can choose their habitat by swimming up or down the current.

So, why won't tub 4 overflow and flood the room? I'm glad you asked. There will be a pump sitting between tub 1 and tub 4 in a small over flow bucket (role played here by our stand in, the cup) with an inflow tub in tub 4 and outflow into tub 1. 

So now we have the tubs sort of configured and in place. We aren't sure exactly how much space we will need between the tubs to get a proper drop for a useful level of flow but here is what we are going to start with:

In addition to doing the spacing, Joe also took the time to mark out the lines we will need to cut to make the notch to mount the gutter channel.

So lets put all that together and see what that looks like...

Clear as mud? Yeah, looking at a model of a model of a model isn't always the best way to understand something. Luckily Joe has spent most of his time today getting an autoCAD program (specifically AutoDesk Inventor) installed and running so he could put together a 3D model of what we are planning to build. That should be done soonish so the image will likely be loaded on Monday.

What has Lori been doing this whole time? Well, she has taken our disjointed, scatter shot notes that we have been tossing around and she is collecting them into an organized lesson plan that might make sense to some one other than the three of us. She is also including videos and enrichment activities that she is digging up online. Here is the first draft for the lesson plan.

Lori also found this website:
Good research site:
Simulation of an aquatic ecosystem
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2528872

Joe's Journal

(Now you're complaining it's out of focus...? What do you people want from us?!)