About 10 days ago one of my friends, a university-educated professional, shared this picture on Facebook. She cares very much about the health and well-being of her family and I have no doubt her intentions were good. As a science teacher this picture bothers me on so many levels. I did some digging around on the internet about this "experiment" and its claims that microwaves negatively change the structure, energy, and/or DNA of substances. There are plenty of other sites pointing out the flaws in this experiment and showing data from other similar experiments.
I got busy and forgot about this picture until I started reading Chapter 2 from our textbook. This picture immediately came to mind as well as a way to use it constructively in my classroom. I'm going to put this picture up on my SmartBoard for one of the first classes of the semester as a way to introduce the scientific method. There are so many questions that could be asked as a way to get students thinking critically:
- What is this picture trying to communicate to us?
- How do we know the results are accurate?
- How would you go about trying to repeat this experiment?
- What exactly do microwaves do do water?
- What other questions could be investigated?
- and the list goes on . . .
I would like to try and make this a regular practice in my classroom. Maybe once a week have a picture or news article that we could discuss as a way to improve critical thinking about science. If I get ambitious I may try the same process using a VoiceThread conversation.
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