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For my big idea it would like the students to record data and make graphs of chemical reactions then present their findings to their classmates. I think that it is critical that students understand how to record their observations and make graphs to explain their findings in the 21st century. It is also important that students can do this on the computer which saves time and makes graphs easier to read. Recently my students showed me the website Create a Graph for kids
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/ this is a very kid friendly site and allows the students to easily make nice creative graphs to show their information. Then this summer I was show the Prezi website http://www.prezi.com/ which is a way to make presentations yet it is more creative than power point. Both of these sites make student presentations neat and creative. I think that it is very important for students to be able to present their information and have speaking skills in the 21st century and these websites help in that area. I would like to use all of these tools with an experiment much like one that we watched in an earlier class where the students are given different materials to mix and then record how quickly the chemical reactions cause the lids of a container to pop off.