North-Central Section - 42nd Annual Meeting (24–25 April 2008)

Paper No. 1
Presentation Time: 8:00 AM

EFFECTIVE EARTH SCIENCE DEMONSTRATIONS USING ONLY ONE OR TWO ITEMS


JOHNSTON, William I. and FRANCEK, Mark, Geography, Central Michigan University, Dow 285, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI 48859, johns1wi@cmich.edu

Demonstrations depicting earth science phenomena can clarify abstract concepts and reinforce the process of scientific inquiry. Eye-opening and exciting demonstrations (demos) can be a memorable science experience for students often inured by an over reliance on lecture, workbook exercises, and canned experiments. At the same time demos can confuse, strain budgets, be time consuming, and even be dangerous.

We present highlights from over 100 demonstrations dealing with the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, space science, and scientific inquiry that use only one or two items. These demonstrations are categorized by science standard and setup costs. Handouts describing these demonstrations will be available.