The Cantankerous Chemist

INTRODUCTION :   I have selected and curated a set of 8 different “texts” relating to my topic of electricity. The following text were chosen to be appropriate for a class of high school physics students, grades 10-11 (though I think with proper implementation and scaffolding, these texts would be appropriate for all high school grades). The texts were chosen for many different purposes and applications, and depending on the text, will be used to either build background knowledge, supplement the topic taught in the classroom, reinforce crucial information, or introduce new concepts or applications in the content area. Some will be used together to build up to other texts, and some will be used as supplementary illustration tools to help with content comprehension. TEXT DESCRIPTIONS: I ended up selecting 9 texts, and I divided them up into three categories: PRINT (book-based, magazine, online articles, etc.), MULTIMEDIA (videos, photo essays, interactive visualizati...

VISUALIZATION PROCESS ANALYSIS My Infographic on Electricity created using Piktochart I am very much a visual learner. I need to be able to visualize a concept in my head in order for me to conceptualize and fully comprehend the content. Because of this, I have always loved Infographics, and so I chose to make an Infographic for my visualization project. I wanted to make the infographic in the style of one of my favorite web comics, The Oatmeal (My two favorite examples are his Mantis Shrimp infographic and his Nikola Tesla infographic). I love the way he streams a narrative with interesting and helpful imagery, fun text sizes and colors, and spacing to make learning about a new topic engaging and fun. I have some experience with this style of infographic because I have made a couple drawing tutorials several years ago with a similar narrative flow and use of images and font/type stylization. However, that tutorial took me weeks to put together, and I only had a fraction of ...

Link to Infograph on Piktochart Loading...

ELECTRICITY The content areas involving electricity have always been the hardest for me to fully comprehend and grasp. I understand the rote definition of electricity--that electricity is simply the flow of electrons from one place to another--and I can make simple circuits and simple electric generators if I need to, but understanding the many other applications of electricity and how they work has always been where my biggest struggle lies (see: electromagnetic induction, electric field maps, transformers, the concept of resistance.... lol etc.) I've taken enough advanced physics classes and have taught enough classes on electricity that I can get by with the basic knowledge I understand at the high school level, but I'm not satisfied with my level of understanding, and I want to improve my comprehension  of these abstract concepts. I am a visual learner, and if I can't visualize a concept in my head, my understanding struggles. I want to be able to fully und...

Links to more resources around the web! Video Series Bill Nye The Science Guy CrashCourse - Physics Nova Particle Men Meet the Element s Heath Cottngim (rap) Photosynthesis Cellular Respiration MinutePhysics What's New In Science? ScienceNews Popular Science COMICS XKCD TOPIC ELECTRICITY Interactive: Electricity Game Circuit Simulator ATOMS Illustrated Periodic Table Interactive Periodic Table Haikus I will be continuously updating this list as I find more :D

Hello World, My name is Kirsten , and I am a BioMolecular Engineer currently earning my certification in science education from UW-Milwaukee 's MACSTEP program. My love for both science and education began when I was a child; I was homeschooled until high school, and the interactive and creative learning opportunities I had growing up cultivated in me a love of education and life long learning. I discovered my love for the STEM fields when I was in college, and in my free-time sought a triple minor in Chemistry, Math, and Physics in addition to my Biomolecular engineering degree. Over the past 15 years, I have been blessed with the opportunities to work with youth from a variety of ages and backgrounds, and have found that my calling is not in a corporate engineering office, but in the classroom. My dream career has become to be to bring my love of education together with my passion for the STEM fields.  My goal is to use my skills, talents, and education to connect with my st...