Teaching with Superhero Elements

The Glog that I created was based on the assignment idea from the top 40 things to use Glogs in the classroom for. The premise for designing this Glog came from a project that I created for use in my science class in the fall. I want the students to do a research project on a particular element, but did not want a boring 5 page paper from each student about the properties of their element. Rather, the students are going to be creating their own Glog that exemplifies and personifies a fictional character that they are going to develop on their own. Each student is going to use the following questions to facilitate their project: 

• What is your element's boiling point, freezing/melting point?
• What is the atomic mass?
• Atomic number?
• What family are they in? (Alkali, Transition, etc.) 
• What is the density of your superhero? 
• Are they malleable, ductile, or brittle? 
• Are they a conductor of heat and electricity? 
• What is their state of matter at room temperature? 
• Are they highly reactive or non-reactive? 

By using this set of information that might guide students when writing a paper, they can use their imagination and creativity to design a fun way to present facts about their element. In addition, they are going to be using the Super Hero Machine 3 lab, a program from Wordpress, that allows them to design their character. The idea I have in mind for using this to facilitate the lesson would be to give them a copy of the questions (or I could embed them on the Glog) and use the model one I made as an outline for what I want them to create. My main goal is for this Glog to do as much facilitating on it's own as possible. Once the students have been given the parameters of the assignment, my hope is that through exploration and curiosity, they will be inspired to come up with their own marvelous format for presenting through the powerful tools that Glogs provide them with.