I have a class of students who are going to be doing a report task starting from the end of this term and finishing late May. It's primarily an English task but will draw upon the resources of the Science Dept (including a fabulous teacher who has offered some of her free time in class and out of school to advise!) to help with doing experiments well.
The notion is to write up on any curious belief and I'll be getting the class to do a test or survey as a part of this. They'll be doing some research on their topic to outline its popularity and facts for and against it. A bibliography is, of course, a part of the processes and strategies outcome.
Here are the topics I thought of:
Dowsing - we have a plot of empty land where a house once stood, but I was mostly thinking of basing it upon the method that Mr Mike G used - http://www.randi.org/jr/032902.html - as that can be done in a classroom. Or a similar one with water in the cups, hidden from view. Dowsing for pregnancy also came up too.
Crystals - this one came from the Science teacher. If they can provide energy, could the students have some in boxes mixed up with some placebos (plasticine) and we test how well they do a speed test of some sort (like editing) and the effect that having a crystal around them or not influences their results?
Zener cards - testing psychic abilities. Might need some work to find what exactly we're looking for... is there anyone in the class who considers themselves particularly intuitive? This sprung up in some research - http://www.indian-skeptic.org/html/is_v01/1-11-7.htm
Horoscopes - I thought this would be the easiest. Perhaps the class thinks back to the previous week (last week of the holidays) and goes through a checklist of what horoscope prediction best matches certain days from that week...
Other ones included Feng shui - perhaps get a book, find a theory and move class furniture around? Study responses? Will need some further suggestions on that...Traffic lights changing - one of the students said that when her mother holds her breath, the lights will change from red to green (is this testable?) Numerology, Ouija boards, I-ching/runes, Tarot cards, Bible codes, Cloudbusting, Pareidolia (not sure how to do a test for that...), Graphology, Palm reading, Myers-Briggs type indicators, Reverse Speech (as a 'lie detector'??).
Any other suggestions or advice greatly appreciated. I am, of course, drawing upon Athon's original Educational resources link and will give an outline of what we did when it's all done.
...eta - and of course, we could always do The Map of the Tounge, as cited in this week's Swift....
I think the students could quite enjoy working over in Home Ec for that one... although they'll probably focus on 'sweet', especially chocolate...
The notion is to write up on any curious belief and I'll be getting the class to do a test or survey as a part of this. They'll be doing some research on their topic to outline its popularity and facts for and against it. A bibliography is, of course, a part of the processes and strategies outcome.
Here are the topics I thought of:
Dowsing - we have a plot of empty land where a house once stood, but I was mostly thinking of basing it upon the method that Mr Mike G used - http://www.randi.org/jr/032902.html - as that can be done in a classroom. Or a similar one with water in the cups, hidden from view. Dowsing for pregnancy also came up too.
Crystals - this one came from the Science teacher. If they can provide energy, could the students have some in boxes mixed up with some placebos (plasticine) and we test how well they do a speed test of some sort (like editing) and the effect that having a crystal around them or not influences their results?
Zener cards - testing psychic abilities. Might need some work to find what exactly we're looking for... is there anyone in the class who considers themselves particularly intuitive? This sprung up in some research - http://www.indian-skeptic.org/html/is_v01/1-11-7.htm
Horoscopes - I thought this would be the easiest. Perhaps the class thinks back to the previous week (last week of the holidays) and goes through a checklist of what horoscope prediction best matches certain days from that week...
Other ones included Feng shui - perhaps get a book, find a theory and move class furniture around? Study responses? Will need some further suggestions on that...Traffic lights changing - one of the students said that when her mother holds her breath, the lights will change from red to green (is this testable?) Numerology, Ouija boards, I-ching/runes, Tarot cards, Bible codes, Cloudbusting, Pareidolia (not sure how to do a test for that...), Graphology, Palm reading, Myers-Briggs type indicators, Reverse Speech (as a 'lie detector'??).
Any other suggestions or advice greatly appreciated. I am, of course, drawing upon Athon's original Educational resources link and will give an outline of what we did when it's all done.
...eta - and of course, we could always do The Map of the Tounge, as cited in this week's Swift....
I think the students could quite enjoy working over in Home Ec for that one... although they'll probably focus on 'sweet', especially chocolate...
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