Learning Never Ends: It’s a Fair Trade

This week I am taking a professional development class at a local college. It’s a week-long seminar and I am blessed to be a part of it. The class, or camp, is sponsored by the American Society of Metals and the organization promotes awareness of the use of materials and careers in material science. I vaguely remember taking Material Science at Texas A&M, but yesterday I had a flashback to thermal expansion problems and coefficients of thermal expansion.  That’s about as ‘sciencey’ as I’ll get this morning. But, one of the more interesting activities we did was to melt tin, cast a tin bar, and do splatter tests for tin. It was very fun and I am looking for ways to do it with my own students in the coming year – they would have a blast. Watch as a tin pellet melts before your eyes.

Also, summer is in full bloom and I can read and write more than I am able during the school year. Woohoo. I was asked by Eli over at Coach Daddy blog to write a guest post, so I did. Our paths like many bloggers he found me and I found him and despite a distance of 500 miles we follow each other and live parallel lives. Eli is a blogger and has kids about my kid’s age. We are both football fans and enjoy sport and the life lessons sport teaches us about hard work, toughness, perseverance, and teamwork. I am proud to call him one of my friends. Take a look at the Coach Daddy blog – read today’s post about how Learning Never Ends and poke around a bit while you are there.

 

As for me, it’s gonna be a great day. It has already been a great week – the Hawks won the cup, O’s softball team won their first playoff game last night – defeating the 2nd seeded team, and W continues to prepare for the football and wrestling season ahead. I am looking down the road, too. Class starts in an hour, so I’d better wrap this up and get moving. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, one lesson learned, one new fact and one new idea, continuing to grow.

Have you ever played with molten metal? It’s cool trust me, I am a scientist.

Check out these photos – molten tin splattered on two different materials – create two different types of grain patterns.

4 thoughts on “Learning Never Ends: It’s a Fair Trade

  1. Glad you’re enjoying your summer, and your class. I am not a particularly science-y person, but I’m married to a man who has a degree in mechanical engineering and he eats this stuff up. It’s surprising to me how much of the science I’ve picked up from him over the years.

Thanks for visiting MtDC. How are YOU Making YOUR Days Count?