The original assignment description is shown below. I've bolded the aspects of the assignment that I aimed to hit during this initial trial-run of the activity:
RFID Activity: Students will research the advantages and disadvantages of storing and transmitting personal information via Radio-Frequency identification chip. They will form an opinion about RFID use in a population and participate in a Socratic seminar. After conducting their research, students will utilize a teacher rubric to assess their understanding by completing a personal reflection and citing their specific article resources utilizing APA formatting.
We felt that by doing this activity, we would support students ability to demonstrate progress towards the NGSS Performance Expectations listed below:
- HS-PS4-2: Evaluate questions about the advantages of using a digital transmission and storage of information.
- HS-PS4-4: Evaluate the validity and reliability of claims in published materials of the effects that different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation have when absorbed by matter
- Energy and matter
Science and Engineering Practices we wanted to hit:
- Asking Questions and Defining Problems
- Engaging in arguments from evidence
- Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information
Leading up to the Socratic Seminar, we focused a whole block day (105 minutes) to understanding how data is stored digitally.
As students walked into class, I prompted them to work in small groups to determine "How many computers are in this room right now?" I challenged them to be as precise as possible, and to write them a number on small whiteboards, ready to defend their answer if I ask. All students immediately turned to the Chromebook cart. I had intentionally left the cart door open, so that students were free to walk up to it and see the number of Chromebooks that were currently stored in it. Other hints I left around the room were the "class set" of five calculators, but most groups did not consider the possibility that they were computers until I started walking around holding one. The funnest part of this lesson was definitely when I got the chance to probe them when I noticed groups feel as if they were getting closer to a number. This type of question required that they think outside of the box, be persistent, and pay attention to detail. There were many different models that circulated about the number of cell phones, which almost all students agreed counted as a computer; many assigned each student a cell phone, whereas others would count the number of people in the room and multiplied by 75% or something. Other things that students eventually considered computers were: thermostat, projector, printer, alarm system, classroom digital clock, and human brains.
Observing the numbers on the whiteboard change from ~36 to 90-100 range was exciting. Over the 10 minutes of this warm-up, students were already discussing what it meant for something to be a computer! The discussion after this activity led us to a consensus that a computer is something that collects information and does something with it. This led really nicely into the teacher-centered mini-lectures I had planned.
I showed them the formal definition of a computer: an electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary form, according to instructions given to it in a program. I pointed out that there are three components to this definition. Understanding what a computer is means understanding how binary code, hardware, and programming come together. I spent a few minutes pointing out to them that everything we can think of as information, such as pictures, words, sounds, etc., can be translated into binary code. Binary code is the language of computers. I related binary code to our decimal system of numbers, asking them if they've ever wondered why all numbers we can think of are only made up of ten different symbols--because we have ten fingers! I told them that binary code was a version of making numbers that only uses 0s and 1s, and that we'd be practicing translating information (numbers and letters) into binary code.
The next activity was adapted from the Binary Numbers resources from CS Unplugged.
Using "binary cards" with dots printed on them, we practiced using them to write digital numbers in binary code. Card flipped up corresponded with a 1 and card face down corresponded with a 0. The number of dots shown represented the digital number value. I gave them a few examples and walked around the room as I heard "light bulbs" go off. At this point in the lesson, I could tell which kids we hooked and interested in this topic and those that were not so much. While I noticed that mostly all students were able to complete the task with mastery, I hope to provide an opportunity for extension, for those students that were especially interested in binary code in the future.
After an introduction to binary code, we discussed in a teacher-centered lecture how electromagnetic radiation is able to translate into binary signals. This was brief and used the PhET simulation for Radio Waves to demonstrate how moving electrons produce an electric field.
In order to see how this phenomenon manifests in other ways, besides cell phone communication and radio signal transmission, I planned to give students a series of short articles on RFID technology. As they walked into class the next day, I handed each student a slip of paper with one or two sentences taken from the articles they were able to read. There were ten different pieces of text that were passed out to each class of 30 students. I intentionally abstained from using any sentences that had RFID in them to avoid giving it away. When the bell rang, I told them that they all received different excerpts from the same two articles, both relating to the same topic. I prompted them to try to figure out in their table groups what the articles were about. They took about ten minutes and used the time to circulate the room and exchange slips and ideas with their classmates about the possible title or topic of the article. There were some great ideas shared.
- It's about shoplifting.
- It's about healthcare.
- Something to do with the meat industry.
- Or about the military.
The articles I used to distribute to students were
"What is RFID?" - from Technovelgy.com
"How RFID works?" - from Technovelgy.com
How is RFID used inside a living body? - Technovelgy.com
"Problems with RFID" - Technovelgy.com
RFID: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Information Week
I condensed all the Technovelgy.com pages to act as "one article" from the same source.
Students were then handed the Socratic Seminar worksheet to complete in order to prepare for the Socratic seminar discussion addressing the question: How are RFID chips good or bad for society?
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