Lifelong Learning Programme

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Experiences

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TEACHERS EXPERIENCES FORM

Title of the Experience
Your own experiments
Name of the teacher
Lic. Vasile Alecsandri
Country where it took place
Romania
School typology
High Secondary School
Thematic Area
Chemistry, Biology, Science
Experience typology
Teaching in class, Extracurricular activity
Type of contact
Direct, Indirect
Description of the Experience
We always encourage students to participate in experiments at home. Of course explaining their safety methods and what are allowed to do and what not.
11. Quick sand is a fascinating substance, make some of your own and experiment on a safe scale. Amaze your friends by demonstrating how it works. What you need is 1 cup of maize cornflower; water; a large plastic container and a spoon. Ask students to mix the cornflower and water in the container to make their own instant quick sand. When showing other people how it works stir slowly and drip the quick sand to show it is a liquid. Stirring it quickly will make it hard and allow you to punch or poke it quickly. Remember that quick sand is messy, try to play with it outside and don’t forget to stir just before you use it. Always stir instant quicksand just before you use it. Ask students to come up with their own explanation.
If you add just the right amount of water to cornflower it becomes very thick when you stir it quickly. This happens because the cornflower grains are mixed up and can’t slide over each other due to the lack of water between them. Stirring slowly allows more water between the cornflower grains, letting them slide over each other much easier.

Comments on this Teachers Experience

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Date: 2014.09.14

Posted by renzi (italy)

This experience is interesting because it is simple to implement. I also believe that poor laboratory experiments are very effective for the understanding of concepts. The fact that students realize it creates motivation and attaches concepts

News

Dissemination Seminar in Florence

31 October 2015 The seminar has been held in ITIS “A. Meucci” one of the schools involved within Goerudio project activities. Its main aim was to promote the results of the project toward a broad sample of stakeholders even overcrossing the number of people directly involved in the production of project outcomes. This purpose has been totally achieved especially thanks to the participation of students and teachers coming from different schools or from other classes instead of those ones directly involved within the project activities.