The Walters Box of Wonder

As a kickoff into a new school year of scientific investigations, today I introduced the Walters Box of Wonder! I built the box, which is basically magic (and a system of plastic bottles and tubes) that create challenging patterns of water input vs. output. The kids had to collect the data and figure out what was inside the box while competing for the fastest time against the other sections of Chemistry classes.  
I rarely have seen students so excited about something I've done in class - it was inspiring :) As of this evening, no students have solved the puzzle yet, but several are hot on the trail! The prize for the winning class = 10 extra points on the next Unit test (talk about a big money prize). 


Seeing the kids get so excited about something like this makes me pretty upset that we have Regents standards/exams that ignore quality inquiry skills and make it difficult for teachers to do any quality science in the classroom. I am lucky enough to be able to teach a class when my students do not have to take the Regent at the end of this year. 


I will say, for as stressful as teaching is, it was awfully nice to have my students back, hear about their summer, and see how much they grew over the last few months! Year 2, here we go! 

Check out the pics to see my classroom (not entirely finished with posters), etc. 

The famous Walters Box of Wonder!! a total inquiry success. 

Daily plans on the board...

Front of the room - yay science!

Our class goals! We love goal-setting :) 

SFU represent in my classroom.