Common+Task+(Austria)

1. Common Task
toc In Austria we did the analysis of tap water in two different classes. All pupils are about 14 years old. The 29 pupils in class 4D have additional science and IT-lessons. In the class 4FK are only eleven pupils. They do not have additional science or IT-lessons but learn Croatian as their second foreign language.

As 4D has only one chemistry lesson per week and the task should have been finished by the end of January, the pupils had only one lesson (50 minutes) to get the explanations from me and to do the analysis. But they were already familiar with some methods from the science lessons.

As 4FK has two chemistry lessons per week, I explained what they should do in one lesson and the tests were done in the following lesson. They had not done any experiments before.

Another difficulty was the language. As they were not used to getting taught science in English and I was told by the English teachers of 4D that the pupils were not very good at English, the pupils had some difficulty understanding and then writing their reports.

It was difficult for me in 4D to see every mistake they made because of the high amount of pupils. During science lesson we teach only half of the class.

The pupils made the mistakes mostly because they were too lazy to read the written instructions thoroughly. (Unfortunately I notice this in nearly every science lesson.)

The pupils’ reports varied much. Some did not even hand one in. Some were very short and only contained the results. Others were very good and detailed. Nobody did the additional task. They would have found the following table if they had read the hint!

//**Wasserqualität (quality of water)**//
 * Eisenstadt**
 * Wert (parameter) || Einheit (unit) || ** 17.11.2009 ** || ** 19.08.2009 ** || ** 24.06.2009 ** || ** 10.03.2009 ** ||
 * pH - Wert ||  || 7,8 || 7,6 || 7,7 || 7,8 ||
 * el. Leitfähigk. || uS/cm || 558 || 529 || 525 || 501 ||
 * Gesamthärte || °dH || 15,7 || 14,4 || 14,8 || 13,6 ||
 * Carbonathärte || °dH || 12,7 || 10,9 || 11,1 || 11,3 ||
 * Mineralsäureh. || °dH || 3 || 3,5 || 3,7 || 2,3 ||
 * Ammonium - Ion || mg/l || <0,02 || <0,02 || <0,02 || <0,02 ||
 * Calcium - Ion || mg/l || 81 || 75 || 76 || 71 ||
 * Magnesium - Ion || mg/l || 19 || 17 || 18 || 16 ||
 * Natrium - Ion || mg/l || 9 || 8 || 8 || 8 ||
 * Kalium - Ion || mg/l || 2 || 2 || 2 || 2 ||
 * Chlorid - Ion || mg/l || 17 || 16 || 16 || 14 ||
 * Nitrat - Ion || mg/l || 22 || 17 || 17 || 14 ||
 * Nitrit - Ion || mg/l || <0,01 || <0,01 || <0,01 || <0,01 ||
 * Bicarbonat - Ion || mg/l || 277 || 238 || 241 || 246 ||
 * Sulfat - Ion || mg/l || 46 || 42 || 41 || 38 ||

In 4D the pupils also had to take a written exam about the analysis of tap water amongst other topics (in German!).

Thinking we have one online test in every country, we waited for Spain and Norway to do their analysis. The pupils had to do the online test on its-learning from April 12th to 18th. Eleven pupils needed some extra time because they had forgotten or had technical problems. One of them did not even do the test then. They had 45 minutes to finish the test, which was perhaps a bit too long.

Here you find a short overview of the **//results//**:

very good (66-100%): 17 average (33-66%): 10 not so good (0-33%): 0

Best result: 18,50/20 points Average result: 14,50/20 points Lowest result: 8,40/20 points

The questions on the equipment were rather easy. The questions on the results were not as easy as expected. The most difficult questions were - as expected – those, where they had to draw some further conclusions on the facts they had learned.

If you are interested in the detailed questions and results have a look here.

2. Additional excursions
As we wanted our pupils to know where the tap water comes from and how it is cleaned, we went with them to the Water Association Of Northern Burgenland and the waste water treatment plant in Eisenstadt. We chose the reports of three pupils (unfortunately in German) to show you their IT skills in presenting information.