Alexa Freshour is Headed to Los Angeles!

alexa freshour “I was beyond ecstatic to find out that I’d be presenting at NSTA 2017!” Alexa Freshour shared.  Freshour submitted her proposal a few months ago and recently received the good news that she’s headed to L.A. in March. Alexa will be presenting a Model Based Inquiry (MBI) unit centered around a puzzling phenomena surrounding her community.  Living close to the famous Nabisco (now Molendez) Factory has its perks!  The air is filled with the wonderful aroma of freshly baked cookies.  However, the factory is 1.4 miles away!  How does this happen?  She and her students launched the investigation and uncovered some very interesting concepts of how odor travels. Freshour will present her unit at the National Science Teachers Association Conference (NSTA) in Los Angeles.  The conference will be held March 30-April 2.  Good luck Alexa! Can’t wait to hear more about it.
To launch the unit, I introduced students to the phenomenon by having them compare the smell of the (warm) cookies baking at the nearby factory ~10 blocks away, to the smell of store-bought (room temperature) cookies on a plate at the front of the room. After smelling each cookie, with their eyes closed, students record their observations of both odors and discuss what they smelled; cookies! In order to unpack their prior knowledge and understandings, I asked them to model and explain how the odor (the unseen) travels from point A to point B. To my surprise, this was the most informative way I had ever began a unit. It provided me with a great platform to build on the common preconceptions students had about states of matter.
To read about her entire project click here.