cat3

RE: I, Robot - Pre- and post-reading tasks

2017-04-30T14:26:59Z

Hello Daniela!

Very complete and interesting Activity based on "I, Robot" - Congratulations! You had a lot of work, and, for sure, I'll "study" your ideas before start my work with students about the book!

About what Asimov could guess (the premonitions...), I found very curious the asteroid mining by big robots, because last year I was with some students at Web summit, Lisbon, “sponsored” by Planetary Resources (http://www.planetaryresources.com/#home-intro ), an US enterprise that has the same goal! And, last year too, a student of mine presented a work about microrobots at her coleagues, in class (because of High Tech Electrical Engines they sould choose to aply some basic eletricity concepts)!

RE: Share your classroom ideas here

2017-04-30T13:14:30Z

FreedomOh what a pleasure
Not fulfill a duty,
Having a book to read
And not doing it!
To read is a bore,
To study is nothing.
The sun shines
Without literature
The river flows, good or bad,
Without original edition.
And the breeze, that one,
Is so naturally matutinal,
As time has no hurry...

Books are papers painted with ink.
To study is a thing that is indistinct
The distinction between anything and nothing.

So much better, as there is fog,
To wait for King Sebastian,
Whether he comes or not!

Great is poetry, the kindness and the dances...
But the world's best are the children,

Flowers, music, the moonlight and the sun, who sins
Only when, instead of creating, dries.

More than that
It is Jesus Christ,
Who knew nothing about finance
And there is no evidence that he had a library...

Fernando Pessoa, in 'Songbook'
(Copy from http://www.wordsandquotes.com/poem/freedom-fernando-pessoa)

Before writing this post, I thought I had to speak about Pessoa, my favorite Portuguese Poet: so lucky me – The Poem Liberty, talks about the freedom of having a book to read and just don’t do it, and about children! (And much, much more…). So, I couldn’t finish to read “I, Robot!”, from Asimov, (a little bit because I was lazy J!), but what I read, the first 4 Chapters, are enough to see it’s a great book for my youngest students, who are still a little bit children (like all of us!).
I have to confess the English version of the book, I bought last Wednesday, was not very easy to read for me, in a rapid way, so I had to take, to be fast, a PDF document, translated to Portuguese by a Brazilian (http://www.planonacionaldeleitura.gov.pt/clubedeleituras/upload/e_livros/clle000024.pdf)
As Literature is about language, I have to say that the written Portuguese, is very different, in Portugal and Brazil (I prefer the European written Portuguese…). The spoken Portuguese, is also very different (as all foreigners can hear!), but, for me, Portuguese from Brazil is the most beautiful spoken language, it has so much musicality that Brazilian songs, written by great Brazilian Poets, can’t be unknown! (Our Portuguese Fado is very nice too!)
One of the activities I propose, for “I, robot!”, is precisely based on a video clip of Chico Buarque, a Brazilian singer (writer and composer!) of Freedom – João e Maria (“Hansel and Gretel”, a possible translation…). You can see, please, the video clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=596g2wg4uXQ and an English translation of the lyrics here http://lyricstranslate.com/en/jo%C3%A3o-e-maria-hansel-and-gretel.html . It’s a “Love Song”, but it’s written in “Childish Language”. It starts with “Now, I was the hero…”, a typical expression children use when they play pretending they are someone else…
So, the first Project Activity I propose would start with the reading of one chapter of “I, robot”, in Portuguese Language, or English (students could practice their English…), exploited in the lessons of the Portuguese or English by the Language Teachers (“I, robot!” is included in our “National Plan of Reading”, to improve reading habits in our students). In Science Classes (namely Physics and Chemistry) students would exploit the scientific references of the story: for example, the text, from “Runaround” Chapter - “The robots started off, the regular thudding of their footsteps silent in the airlessness, for the nonmetallic fabric of the insosuits did not transmit sound. There was only a rhythmic vibration just below the border of actual hearing.” – it´s amazing to exploit a lot of acoustic concepts … And the book is full of other physics (astronomy) and chemistry references... Finally, with the help of Computer and Art Teachers, students would do a video clip, telling the story of the chapter they exploited, relating it, of course, with a scientific subject… To motivate for the “I, robot video clip”, students could get inspired too in “One Minute Physics” little “movies” – See, for example, this one “Guns in space” – not a one minute one, but very interesting when we talk about “I, robot”! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYf6av21x5c.

The other activity I propose, and I’ll try to do it with my 8 th grade students next time, it’s to use Lego Robots, to exploit Optics: “How Does a Robot see”, is the name I choose for the activity. To get motivated for robotics, students are invited to read the book, and, or, see the movie based on it (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(film) ) and after, they will do a little program for the Lego Robot to move, based on color sensors. In fact, I already asked some students to see the movie (they haven’t heard about it, but they get enthusiastic to watch it at home…), to try to involve them to start programing with Lego Robots. With this activity, I would like to initiate students (and me J!) in Programming and make them learn a little bit more about the physics of color sensors…
I tried to see the “I, robotics” movie myself and it was not available at my “home video club”, but, what I read of the Asimov Book was already enough to understand that it has a lot of potentiality to develop SETAM educational activities. As a Physics Teacher, I consider the 3 Asimov Laws of robotics, can be compared with the 3 Newton Laws, in a scientific way as they include, in my humble opinion, the bases of Programming Languages, as Newton Laws determine the Mechanics of robots… But, maybe more important, they can be exploited in an humanistic way to discuss our fictional existences, as our, great Poet, Fernando Pessoa, does with is heteronymous… As Fernando Pessoa was a bilingual poet (he lived part of his childhood in South Africa) I finish my post with an English Poem:
How Many Masks Wear WeHow many masks wear we, and undermasks,
Upon our countenance of soul, and when,
If for self-sport the soul itself unmasks,
Knows it the last mask off and the face plain?
The true mask feels no inside to the mask
But looks out of the mask by co-masked eyes.
Whatever consciousness begins the task
The task's accepted use to sleepness ties.
Like a child frighted by its mirrored faces,
Our souls, that children are, being thought-losing,
Foist otherness upon their seen grimaces
And get a whole world on their forgot causing;
And, when a thought would unmask our soul's masking,
Itself goes not unmasked to the unmasking.

Fernando Pessoa, in 'English Poetry - 35 sonnets'

RE: Share your classroom ideas here

2017-04-27T12:12:06Z

Dear Robert!
I didn't find the book at the first bookshop, but in the second I looked for it (in the same shoping center) - there it was! I know, that in some libraries they don't have it in the shop, but they order it to the editor (some colegues are aleady in the way to read it...). I'm talking about the Portuguese version!
Yesterday I tried do buy "I, Robot" in its portuguese version and I was not so lucky - it woul take at least 15 days for the library to have it. So, I bought the english version! (Impressive, isn't it?!).
It's that I'll try to idealize a work for sutdents with the Azimov book! Not tha I like science fiction (To be true, I don't like!) - but, teachers have to do a lot of unpleasent work... (that after became nice, because of students, isn't it?)The funny thing is that Asimov was too a Chemist, and, like Oliver Sacks, with Russion origins...
Let´s see if I still have time to reead "I, Robot" until the end of the month...

RE: Share your classroom ideas here

2017-04-26T16:19:14Z

Dear Robert, hello!
Yesterday I shared my opinion about Uncle Tungsten here, but, today I saw another coleague opinion about the same book in another "table"... Everything is ok with my submission or should I paste it to the other table?
Thank you,
Teresa Paiva

RE: Share your classroom ideas here

2017-04-25T22:55:55Z

Today is holiday in Portugal – we celebrate our “Carnation Revolution”, and, I just received from a former student the link to a TV news: Thomas Pesquet, the youngest ESA Astronaut, took some pictures to Portugal from the ISS – very nice! http://sicnoticias.sapo.pt/pais/2017-04-25-Astronauta-frances-fotografa-Portugal-para-assinalar-o-25-de-Abril
I spent my holiday reading “Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood.” – very nice, too!
When I started my reading, last week, I immediately realized it was a great book, and I regret I didn´t read it before! Even, because, the only long term work I’ve done before, with students, in 2011/12, based on a Portuguese science literature book, named “Haja Luz! – Uma História da Química Através de Tudo” (“Let there be light! One History of Chemistry Through Everything” – my translation…), was written by a Chemist and Art Critic, Prof. Jorge Calado. Of course, “Oncle Tungsten” has a lot of similarities with “Haja Luz!”, it’s cited often there, and, very curious, Roald Hoffmann, the Nobel Chemist 1981 Prize, who offered Oliver Sacks a piece of tungsten in 1997, had invited before, in 1982, Prof. Jorge Calado to teach at Cornell University the new topic “The Art of Science”! By the way, Roald Hoffmann wrote with Carl Djerassi, the theater play “Oxygen”, a fictional narrative about the discovery of the vital gas by Lavoisier, Priestley and Sheele.( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY5vdv-NJqs – a link to a Portuguese adaptation of “Oxygen”)
Only by reading the first chapter of the book, I started to do, as a teacher, a short term work: I immediately recommended it to some former students, I used to prepare for Physics and Chemistry Olympiads, and I advertised it to some colleagues at a professional Facebook groups.
With my actual students I’ll do a middle term work: I’ll start my lessons next week, about the Periodic Table, reading some texts of the book, to do some “abstracts” of the topic studied before – there’s a nice literary text, where Bohr structure of the electrons in the atom, is related with the position of the element at the Periodic Table and the reactivity of the elementary substance… and another one about the “geography” of the Table. I’ll make some of my next questions, for written tests, using little texts from all over the book. For example, there’s a very funny story about acid-base reactions, when uncle Dave makes Oliver drink salty water after mixing HCl and NaHO… But, the book is full of other great episodes about a lot of Physics and Chemistry topics… Another work could be, a more experimental one, of reproducing some of the experiments the little Oliver has done, not so common, like producing solutions with a density much higher than water where metals don’t sink!
Finally, I hope I can do a long term Project Work, with secondary students next year. In fact, according to me, the Portuguese version of the book looks like a little bit heavy for most of the students until 13 years old. To older students, I would recommend the entire book. After reading it I would suggest each group of students, to choose a Scientist to do a work about its personality, bringing some humanity to Science! Maybe, for motivation, I would recommend to the students the coming soon National Geographic episodes about Einstein Life “Genius” http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/genius/ (National Geographic pictures also inspired Oliver Sacks, the boy, for photography J). My idea is, using the profession of Oliver Sacks, and its great interest in different people, referred in the book, try to relate Physics and Chemistry with Neurosciences (the fashion research topic of the moment) and Scientists character.
Reading “Uncle Tungsten”, was a pleasure, and already a great “training course” as it touches almost all the topics I have to teach. Exploiting the book with students will bring me, for sure, “the freedom and the joy” science brought to Mendleev, so admired by Oliver Sacks.

RE: Welcome

2017-04-23T13:49:31Z

Hello!

I'm Teresa Paiva, from Lisbon, Portugal!
I'm a Physics and Chemistry teacher at a private school, and I always like to teach science in a STEAM (the A from any Art) environment - Literature is one of the Arts I prefer...
The most emblematic Portuguese poet is Luís Vaz Camões ("our" Shakespeare, or Cervantes, or Dante...), from the XVI century. (By that time Portugal was the Global Village – see, please, The First Global Village: How Portugal Changed the World, by Martin Page)
The first poem published by Camões, in a "book" from a physician living in Goa, India, Garcia de Orta, is, precisely about Science (Medicine)! This poem was published in 1563, by a German, Johann von Enden - so , you see, very global, by that time! The poem can be read here http://www.jornaldepoesia.jor.br/camoes65.html, but, sorry, in Portuguese old language.

The Portuguese physics and chemistry teachers who love literature are very lucky, because we have a contemporary poet, with a pseudonym, António Gedeão, who was a Physics and Chemistry teacher, Rómulo de Carvalho – you can read here some poems in an English translation J https://www.behance.net/gallery/10350221/Antonio-Gedeao-PoemasPoems.
So, I choose the Oliver Sacks book, I’m reading now, to participate in this so interesting contest, because I didn’t know it, and it’s about Chemistry, the topic I’m teaching at the moment to mine 9 th grade students. I already read at the Forum the mention to Primo Levi, and, according to me, the book “The Periodic System” should be compulsory to all secondary level science students… I presented already in a Chemical Meeting of Teachers, in Portugal, a work, done by a student – “Chemistry and Philosophy in the Periodic System, by Primo Levi”.
This Sunday, the World Book Day, I’ll go to the gardens of Gulbenkian Foundation, to read “Oncle W”, in the Portuguese version – and, for sure, I’ll do a break visiting again the great exhibition of another very interesting Portuguese Modern Artist, Almada Negreiros. With my 8th grade students, who are studing acoustic and optics, we will do a Project work: “Sound and Light in O amanhecer do dia claro (“Daybreak of clear day”, my translation…), from Almada Negreiros”. If any colleague comes to Portugal soon, please visit exhibition. Of course, you can always take a look here: https://gulbenkian.pt/cam/en/current-exhibitions/ -It’s amazing how scientists worked to promote Art, and how artists promote ScienceJ! In the end Science is a kind of Art, isn’t it?
Good readings, good work!
Teresa