Week 8 Reflection

This week I want to reflect on an interesting situation I ran in to when trying to develop a lesson. The topic this week was cellular respiration and fermentation so I went online to come up with some ideas for lessons. As I went through the lesson plans on the internet I came upon a couple in which the teacher had students make their own root beer using the fermentation of yeast. I thought this was a great idea and I quickly ran out to pick up the materials needed. The next day I ran the idea past Mr. Taylor. At first we decided it would be fun to do but once we thought about it for a while we remembered that there would be alcohol produced. Now, the amount of alcohol that would have been produced would have been insignificant. You would have to drink a few gallons of the stuff before you would feel anything at all. Eventually we decided not to go through with the lesson. Not because the alcohol would have had an effect on the students but rather because of behavior of the students. All that we would have needed to happen was have a students tell the rest of the school or their parents that their teachers gave them alcohol. Again, there would have been an insignificant amount in the drink but that didn't matter. Looking back now I think that we made the right decision and avoided a lot of possible problems by doing so.