I hate to burst your bubble, but......

A Reflection on "The Bubble Debacle"

Performing the “bubble experiment” at Haw River Elementary was an interesting experience. There were many factors that seemed to work against us, and few occurrences that seemed to help our instruction. The factors that I believe inhibited our instruction were the time frame, our interactions with the students, and the activity in and of itself. The only thing that seemed to actually work in our favor was the willingness and excitement of our students.

We had just under an hour to execute the bubble activity – in this time frame, we had to set up the experiment, cover all parts, create charts, allow our students to have some free thought and trial and error time, and clean up. All in all, the time frame just wasn’t sufficient. Another detriment to providing adequate instruction was our interaction with our group of students. As other members of my group noticed, I find equating an intangible concept to concrete examples the best way to make connections in a lesson. However, I honestly have no clue as to whether or not this strategy was beneficial to our students. The time I had spent with them so far during the day was not ample or conducive to my ascertaining their learning styles and preferences. Finally, the thread that weaves this whole thing together – the utter absurdity of doing this experiment with 2nd graders. The point of this experiment was to demonstrate the surface tension of water and how it decreases when different substances are added to the water. The goal of this experiment was not to TALK about or LECTURE about this change in surface tension. However, given the fact that over half of a group of 37 almost college graduates could not demonstrate this (i.e. the paper clip doesn’t float) this was a concept that had to be verbally explained to 7 year olds. To be honest, I don’t think they got it. To be really honest, I don’t think they cared.

However, the one positive thing about this experiment were our students themselves. The 4 students Michelle, Samantha & I were privileged enough to work with were excited, engaged, and at least willing to pretend that they understood surface tension. They participated with us, behaved as they were asked to, and showed interest in what we were saying to them. This is more than I can say for many students that I have met, observed, or worked with, and I must say it was a refreshing experience.

As for the question “What would you do differently?” I have only one answer. I wouldn’t do anything differently with this bubble experiment, because I wouldn’t do it again. I would find or create a different activity to demonstrate surface tension. Not only do I think that it would be beneficial to students actually demonstrate this concept, but I think that something like showing a Water Strider walking on water would be really cool.