Week 4 - Power point presentation

Most people would have done this presentation on day one, but I waited until I knew the classes better and there was a break in Mr. Ambrose’s schedule. I began using power points in college and graduate school as a communication tool, so I thought this would be an effective way to give my presentation. Mr. Ambrose was able to borrow a projector this past Friday and the pictures became better than words. My presentation was about me, my journey from high school to the present, where science is applied, what kind of science is done in my department (a lot), and then a science story specific to my field (Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter). At the end of the presentation I asked the class some general questions about where they see themselves in 5 years, what college they want to go to, what they want to major in, etc…

During the presentation I tried to involve the class as much as possible by asking them what they thought about the topic I was discussing. Sometimes I would ask a question, with the answer on the slide. It was amazing to see how many students were not paying attention. One of he biggest hurdles is getting these students to think outside the box. It seemed like a quarter of the class would fall asleep, a quarter would be interested and paying attention, and then half would be doing something else besides those two things.

My favorite part of giving this presentation was I had a slide of three pictures: a supernova, the sun, and the moon Titan. I asked the class if they recognized each of these pictures and every class could identify two of them, not Titan. By showing the Titan picture, I was trying to get them to think outside the box. I asked: why do you think it looks hazy…. dense atmosphere, why is it bluish green? - what chemical would make those colors?... methane. At this point in every period I had most of the students’ attention. They were so curious because they thought it was Earth and how could there be anything else in the solar system that looked like Earth. It was great to see this involvement. One student in a chemistry class came up to me after the presentation and asked if they were going to do anything like this in class. He was so excited about chemistry on other planets.

At the end of the presentation when I asked them questions about their future, I was quite surprised how many students had answers. My 1st period is a mix of mainly juniors and seniors, so I hoped they already knew some of these answers about their future. The rest of the periods are sophomores, so they should be thinking about these things now. I found out that the majority of the Astronomy class wants to do something else besides science. One student asked me if it was possible to major in computer graphics (design covers for video games or figures for video games).

Many of these students act tough and think they don’t need to pay attention, but when you get past the tough outer shell there are eager students who want to do something with their lives. Most loose interest because they don’t know how to apply what they learn in class to the real world.