Science Ideas for 4/29/2016

This week, I’ve got an important idea, and then concrete resources.  First, the idea.

We’re shifting science education from “learning about” to “figuring out.”  It’s a quick question you can ask yourself about the fundamental structure of any lesson – are the kids learning about things, or are they figuring things out?  The difference is subtle, but it’s everything.

When it’s possible, make sure the kids are the ones figuring out.  That takes longer, and that’s okay.  We can’t shortcut that process.  We can try – we can try to “cover” more material.  But just because I said something in a classroom doesn’t mean anyone heard it. 

Now not everything can be “figured out.”  If you’re teaching base level facts, or things that cannot be observed in the classroom, but all means explain it.  But if it’s possible for the students to construct the explanation themselves, the learning is very different.

So I was just “teaching about” a new idea.  Maybe a little got through to you? But it mostly won’t.  Until you “figure it out” within your own terms.  I think that’s so interesting.  My medium here, email, is limited in that regard.

On to resources! I am constantly scouring the world for resources for you.  This week, I found a doozey.  Some of you are already probably familiar with this, but check out Jordan District’s collection of science lesson plans:

http://departments.jordandistrict.org/curriculum/science/elementary/sciencecurriculummapping/index.html

There are links for K-6, but I found K-3 to be empty.  The goods start in 4^th.  These lessons are comprehensive – if you teach them, you will “cover” all indicators in the core. You can rearrange the order to fit our district’s pacing map.  The one catch – many lessons are great, some are good, and some need modification.  But it’s easier to rework a lesson that already exists instead of starting from scratch.  So this is a tremendous resource! 

Science Ideas for 4/15/2016

This week, I want to focus on the idea that science is not a body of knowledge.  Well, it is that.  But more importantly, science is a way of finding things out. I am less interested in what our kids “know” by the end of the year.  I am much more interesting in how we’ve developed their skills in finding things out. 

In their future careers, 99% of them will not need to know squat about the shape of the Earth’s magnetic field.  And if they do, they’ll google it. Would I like them to know?  Of course.  But there are tens of thousands of things I’d like them to know.  And unfortunately, our time with these kids is not infinite.  So we’ve got to choose our battles.  Also, we must make kids good at finding out things that no one has before.  These problems cannot be googled, and there is only one appropriate way to solve them: test, gather data, and draw conclusions.  That is science, and that is what we’re going to emphasize this week. 

As many of you have already finished covering your science content in preparation for SAGE, I’ll look back to your whole year’s core for ideas this week.  These ideas will just be questions, and some of them are a little vague.  That’s okay, because remember, we’re not as interested in the answer as we are in the process.

On to the ideas:

Kindergarten Ideas: Can the weather today help us predict the weather tomorrow?

First Grade Ideas: What path does the sun follow across the sky?

Second Grade Ideas: Do heavy things fall faster or slower than light things?

Third Grade Ideas: How does a particular simple machine change the amount of force applied?

Fourth Grade Ideas: How long does it take to water to evaporate?

Fifth Grade Ideas: How does the density of water change as it changes phases?

Sixth Grade Ideas: How does the insulation of a dry sock compare to a wet sock?

Teaching Kids to Love Fishing

We all know the one about "Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish..."

What if fish represented science knowledge?  I know, but just go with me here for a sec.

We can only "give" a certain amount of science knowledge between August and June.  And it isn't very much.

So we teach them to fish - to pursue and generate their own science knowledge.  We teach questioning, data, analysis... Once we're not around any more, they can keep growing their knowledge.  They can keep finding fish.

But will they?

What if teaching them to love fishing is the most important piece of the whole thing?

That's not going to be on the SAGE test, by the way. 

Science Ideas for 4/8/2016

Investigations.  That’s where I want to focus this week – how can we get kids to design an investigation, gather data, then draw conclusions by arguing from evidence?  Use the investigation to explore part of your science core, but the focus is not on what you can “cover” by doing this activity.  It’s about the investigation itself.  Grade level ideas below!

See all ideas, plus some editorial posts from me, on my blog: http://mrqsciencenews.blogspot.com/

Kindergarten Ideas: This is a little redundant from last week, but for an easy investigation, try this: which rolls further down a ramp: a big ball or a small ball?  If you looked at something like that already, play with other variables, like a heavy ball or a light ball.  If you did it already as a class, let the students generate which question to investigate next, or pick up on a misconception you discovered during your previous trial.

I’ve put in enough pictures of balls and ramps, so here’s something different.

First Grade Ideas: Here’s an indicator: “Identify how natural earth materials (e.g., food, water, air, light, and space), help to sustain plant and animal life. “ Here’s your investigation: What do seeds need to germinate?  Your control is seeds in a Ziploc with a damp paper towel, in the dark.  Do two bags for each group: one control, and one where they change a variable.  Use soda instead of water.  Keep some in the light instead of the dark. Put some in the fridge instead of room temperature. You might be surprised at what your seeds can do.

Try it with Diet Mountain Dew…

Second Grade Ideas: Here’s an indicator: “Investigate and provide evidence that matter is not destroyed or created through changes.”  There are many ways to start to get at this one.  Make things out of legos, weigh the thing, then break it apart and weigh the individual pieces.  That  one’s easy, this is harder: make something out of playdoh, and then shred it down to the smallest pieces possible. Weigh the before and after.  Cut up a piece of paper, same thing.  Let me know if you need little digital scales – I have a bunch.

Weighs the same – assembled or disassembled.

Third Grade Ideas: This indicator would work great for an investigation: “Identify and discuss as a class some misconceptions about heat sources (e.g., clothes do not produce heat, ice cubes do not give off cold). “ How can they prove that a jacket does not produce heat?  Here’s something a little harder: How can they show how much heat a machine produces?  Hint: you’ve got to trap that heat, so think about putting a laptop in a cardboard box, with a blanket over it.  Now you’ve trapped the heat.  See me for digital thermometers – they work way better for this kind of thing.

All machines produce heat.  Some more than others…

Fourth Grade Ideas: Here’s an indicator: “Describe how the water cycle relates to the water supply in your community. “ Here’s a possible investigation: How does the shape of a container effect the rate of evaporation? This is all about surface area.  More surface area generally means more evaporation.  Compare a deep container with a shallow container, with the same amount of water.  Let them struggle with how to collect data – how to quantify it.  Hint: You can probably measure how much the water level dropped, or weigh the containers.  But let them figure it out!

¡Ciencias!

Fifth Grade Ideas: You’re on heredity, and it’s harder to do an investigation there.  Generation cycles just take way too long with any living thing.  So let’s look at something else!  Back to chemical and physical changes, because we can never get enough of those.  This indicator is perfect: “Hypothesize how changing one of the materials in a chemical reaction will change the results.” This is a natural fit.  Do baking soda and vinegar inside a graduated cylinder.  That way you can measure how high up it bubbles.  Then systematically change the amount of reactants and see what you get.  For example, always do 50 ml of vinegar, and do 1 tsp baking soda, then 2 tsp, then 3, and so on.  It is okay if the setup does not yield perfect data the first time – mess with it!  That is science.

No hats in school, Miss. But good job sciencing.

Sixth Grade Ideas: I just saw this one at Hawthorne, and the kids were having a blast: 

https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/materials/listbytype/EDC_TPS.html#.VwaJJ_kgsgs

Plus it’s from NASA, so automatic cool points.  Let me know if you need help with any aspect of the setup, because it takes some doing.

If that’s intimidating, I’ll steer you back to the stomp rockets I mentioned in my last email.  If you’re interested in doing other rockets later (water bottle, or otherwise) it’s a cheap, fast, and safe way to run a lot of prototypes.  And that’s truly where the learning occurs – many prototypes. Two or three is not many.  Just let me know if you want to use the stomp rocket platforms, I made three for your use.

I've already made the launchers, and I angle mine 45 degrees sideways.  Then the kids make the rockets.

Thanks everyone, and remember, investigations take time!  Give them the time they deserve.

We're Mostly Wrong

Recently, I heard an interesting thing from an entrepreneur.  He was telling me about how his company generates new ideas.  They watch the market, and get an idea about which products might be successful.

And that those ideas are mostly wrong.

Sounds like a recipe for failure.  But they're not.  Very much the opposite, actually. The trick is, they have a lot of ideas.  And they test them all.  From the testing comes data, and from the data comes a decision about which products aren't wrong.  A small fraction of them are right. (Roughly 10%, he told me.)

When they find one that's right, they go all in.

This is what we mean when we say we're teaching kids to think scientifically.  Because in a complex world, our brains actually aren't that good at determining what's true.  We're good at figuring out if that shadow in the woods is a tiger, or recognizing a face, even if that person has a new haircut. But it doesn't take much abstraction before we lose our edge.  Smoking is bad for you?  Washing hands decreases the spread of disease?   More standardized testing will save education? These are things about which our "conventional wisdom" were wrong. But luckily, science was able to give us truth.

To generate truth, we need to look at data. And to generate the right data, we need to be good at designing investigations.

Kids will need this kind of thinking for the rest of their lives.  They'll need to figure out how to eat.  How to study.  What kind of company to start. These are answers that cannot be googled.  And "conventional wisdom" in these areas is constantly proven wrong.  Have we taught them how to design an investigation to generate the data they'll need to answer those questions?

Without those investigations, they'll never have the benefit of this incredible thing science offers us: that's it's okay to be mostly wrong.

Science Ideas for 4/1/2016

There are many things I can’t believe, and one of them is that it’s April already.  We’re entering the crunch time of year – testing is either knocking on the door, or upon us already.  So upper grades, we have you finishing your last units in the next two weeks.  Lower grades, we’ve got you paced out a little further.  I hope you find the ideas below useful.

Kindergarten Ideas: We’re on to the first standard in your core, about the nature of science, and conducting investigations.  .  I’ll quote Objective 1 here: “Generating Evidence: Using the processes of scientific investigation (i.e. framing questions, designing investigations, conducting investigations, collecting data, drawing conclusions)”

This is a great one for rolling things down ramps.  We use the ramp thing a lot, but it’s just really easy to put together investigations, and kids like rolling things. For starters, compare two different types of balls, and see which one goes further when rolled down the ramp, across the carpet.  Have the kids predict, then talk about data, and what data you can collect to prove which one went further.  From there, you can do a lot of things to elaborate – change the ramp height, find balls of similar size but different weight, compare different surfaces (roll down the hall, or across tile.)  The idea is we’re trying to get them to think scientifically about learning something about the world.

Ramps are like soy.  Useful for so many things!

First Grade Ideas: Next week is a great week to go outside in the morning and find the moon.  Even if you’ve done that already this year, actually, especially if you’ve done that already this year, go check it out.  Observe those patterns.  Is it in a different place in the sky, compared to earlier this year? Look back to our soda straw moon spotting rig from earlier this year.  Check out my blog post about that from back in December: http://mrqsciencenews.blogspot.com/2015/12/science-ideas-for-12715.html

Second Grade Ideas: “Observe falling objects and identify things that prevent them from reaching the ground. “ Design parachutes.  Find a nice high place to drop stuff – second story railings work great.  A small stuffed animal works well as a payload, and adds a little drama to the action. Use a stopwatch to time how long it takes to hit the ground, and refine the designs as they go! Doesn’t get much better than that!

 

Third Grade Ideas: Here’s something a little different for your forces and motion.  It applies to this indicator: “Show how these concepts apply to various activities (e.g., batting a ball, kicking a ball, hitting a golf ball with a golf club) in terms of force, motion, speed, direction, and distance (e.g. slow, fast, hit hard, hit soft). “ Though it’s really more of an engineering challenge.  They are called Stomp Rockets, and they’re really simple.  There is a 2 liter bottle, which is attached to a PVC pipe.  The pipe angles up, and you slide a paper “rocket” over the other end.  Stomp on the soda bottle to push the air out of the tube, thus launching the rocket, like blowing into a soda straw with the wrapper still on it.  See the picture below, it makes way more sense. So you start with the most basic design, which is just a tube, and the kids engineer it from there.  Add tail fins, weight, use different types of paper – the sky’s the limit!  I have three stomp rocket launchers built, though it’s best if you bring your own soda bottles.  The bottles do wear out after enough stomps.  The kids can measure either how far the rocket flew to gauge its success.  So this kinda teaches forces, but it’s really an awesome way to teach data collection, independent variables, and testing one variable at a time. 

A word about that – methodically changing one variable at a time is NOT a natural process for most kids.  It must be taught.  Don’t be afraid to go through this activity 2 or 3 times, really taking the time to talk about variables.  It’s complex! Take the time it deserves. P.S. – any grade level can do this, not just 3^rd.  Just let me know, and we’ll make it happen!  It’s a blast.

Fourth Grade Ideas: Here’s an indicator from all the water cycle stuff: “Describe how the water cycle relates to the water supply in your community. “ I just received a few cool maps from the Public Utility Department at the city here – one of them shows our watershed, and I’ve attached it to this email.  A few things to notice about this map: which direction is the water flowing?  Look at the elevation numbers – what do those tell us about where water is going?  Does the Jordan River flow North, or South?  How do you know?  What do you think the dotted lines mean when the rivers hit the urban environments? Like any map, or good data set, there are so many questions you can ask, and so many things you can learn with your kids by examining it.  If you like this one, I have access to more.  Just let me know.

This is a random picture a watershed.  What you want is the attached file of the actual map I talked about above.

Fifth Grade Ideas: Still working with heredity.  Here’s a lesson from UEN that covers many indicators within the heredity standard: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview?LPid=2713  It’s all about mealworms and earthworms, which are delightful little creatures!  Let me know if you need any assistance getting your hands on some.  Sometimes the hardest part can be just getting out to the store to get a simple thing.  It’s as easy as “Hey Kevin, can you get me some worms for next week?”  I’m better than Amazon Prime. Just let me know.

Sixth Grade Ideas:  Here’s a little one for you: in trying to distinguish radiation from conduction and convection, show the kids that we can bounce radiation off a mirror.  Check out a heater like this:  http://www.murdochs.com/shop/comfort-zone-oscillating-parabolic-dish-radiant-heater/ The heating element is in the center, and the radiation bounces off the parabolic mirror dish in the back, thus spreading it out to the area we’re trying to heat.  If I had one to loan, that would be 1,000 times better, but we can still learn something from thinking about it.  That will help them understand that conduction and convection are when the molecules bump into each other, but radiation is a totally different mechanism.

Think you could get a tan from this thing?

Phenomenon First, Explanations Second

How often have I started a science lesson with these words: "Who remembers, from last time..."  Or "Get your science folders out."

I've done it many times.  And each time, I can feel the energy drain out of the room.

How about this instead:

"Everyone, come over here. I'm about to show you something you've never seen before."

Feel any different?

As I've been observing in many many classrooms this year, I've noticed countless teachers starting lessons with long winded stuff.  When I reflect on my own practice, that tendency describes me perfectly. How many minutes pass until I get to something interesting?  And no, recalling our vocabulary words is not interesting.  (Necessary?  Yes.  We'll get there.  But there's a reason that books don't put the glossary in front.)

Moving forward, I pledge to start with the phenomenon.  Mix the chemicals, and watch it do something. Feel the heat difference in an incandescent bulb and a CFL.  Watch the youtube of the octopuses transforming to look like seaweed in the blink of an eye.  Go outside and actually look at the moon, noticing how it's in a different place from yesterday. I will start with a bang.

The natural words is a wonderful and inspiring place.  And once you've activated that wonder, your students are ready.  Their minds are sense-making machines, but they're choosy.  Give them something worth making sense of.  Then they're yours.

They'll need the vocab, because they'll want to explain what they're seeing.  Or they'll be ready to listen to teacher, if they need more explanation.  Provide that, if it's appropriate.  Or ask them a new question to point them in the right direction.

And they'll want to observe the phenomenon again, with this new understanding.  They'll want to gather their data differently this time, because now they know what they want to see. We'll do it.

Learning doesn't happen in an instant, and doesn't always happen according to the schedule posted on my door.  It happens when I've earned their attention, then they apply that attention to understanding.

Framed in the research, this is the first phase of the 5E model - "Engage."  For more on that, look here: http://bscs.org/bscs-5e-instructional-model

If I can't figure out a way to start with something engaging, I'll ask my team. I'll ask others in my network.  If we can't figure it out together, I will stop teaching that subject.  My time is too precious, and the trust of my students is too sacred, to waste on something that's not inspiring.

But that hasn't happened yet.  Science is cool.

Science Ideas for 3/11/16

The weather is awesome!  It'll continue to be awesome next week, but in a more rainy and snowy way.  So these ideas are still more indoors oriented.  Soon, my friends.  Soon, we can do more stuff outside.  On to science ideas for the week:

Kindergarten Ideas - On to our lessons that will integrate with the Process, Nature, and Communication of Science.  Though I dislike the label, it's the scientific method, in short.  (I dislike that label because it implies that science always follows a rote series of steps, and must be done a certain way.  This is simply not true.  In the real world, science is as messy and creative as it is methodical.  We can and should have elements of both when we teach science.)  Check out the ideas, tied in with movement of nonliving things, on our district web page here: 

 http://www.slcschools.org/departments/curriculum/science/Grade-Pre-K-to-2/Grade-K/Movement.php#.VuLyBfkgsgs

 Ramp it up!

First Grade Ideas - Here's an indicator, from standard 2, objective 1: "Observe, compare, describe, and sort components of soil by size, texture, and color." Couldn't be simpler!  Go get a few scoops of soil, some big pieces of paper, and some hand lenses.  If you have microscopes, this really helps. (Hawthorne teachers, see me if you don't know how to use the dissecting microscopes in your science room.  They're a little different, and very cool.)  Please use real soil from outside, not potting mix.  That's not soil, it's an artificial media.  Which works great for potting.  But not for learning about the parts of soil.  We want the kids to see that the stuff we usually just think of as dirt has a whole lot of complexity to it.  Give them some vocabulary to describe what they're seeing: grain size, rocks, pebbles, organic material, etc.  The highlight is if they find bugs or worms.  Let me know if you need some good soil, and I'll bring you some from my garden.  Fun stuff!

 View the wondrous subtleties of soil.

Second Grade Ideas - New standard this week, and it's a great one!  Here you go:

Objective 1 
Communicate observations about falling objects.

1. Observe falling objects and identify things that prevent them from reaching the ground.
   
2. Communicate observations that similar objects of varying masses fall at the same rate. 

Let the fun begin!  I'll have a lot of ideas here, so we'll go a little at a time.  First, gather up various items around the room, and do drop tests to see which hits the floor first.  Make sure you get a few things that have different masses, but won't catch a lot of air as they fall.  Example: a stapler and a paperclip.  They should hit the floor at the same time.  A few tips: it's hard to see which hits first, but it's easier to hear.  Second, all iPhones have slow-mo video now, right in the camera app, which is fun for this test.  Third: you can make a drop test rig by pushing things off a desk at the same time with something straight, like a ruler.  They have to be close to the same size for this to work.

So here's the science: things all fall at the exact same rate, no matter how heavy they are.  Unless something gets in the way.  Like air.  So something with a large surface area would catch a lot of air, and would then actually fall more slowly. This is usually explained by saying "gravity pulls evenly on everything."  More ideas next week!

​Third Grade Ideas - Here's an indicator from Standard 5 Objective 1: "Observe and report how sunlight affects plant growth."  Give each group two ziploc bags with 10 lentil seeds in each bag.  Stick the seeds in a wet paper towel inside each bag.  Put one bag in a sunny windowsill, and the other in the dark.  Wait a few days, then get them out and make observations.  Do this for two weeks.  You'll see the sunny ones do what you'd expect, and the dark ones do some interesting things.  Talk about what you see, and why you think they did that.  Another observational activity: look at how the plants and trees outside grow towards the sun.  We call this phototropism, or heliotropism.  That's the tendancy of plants to grow toward light (photo) or the sun (heilio.) 

 Where do you think the sun is, in this photo?

Fourth Grade Ideas - Here's an indicator: "Investigate and record temperature data to show the effects of heat energy on changing the states of water."  One of my favorite labs: boil a pot of water in front of the class with a digital thermometer inside.  Observe as it changes phase.  And rest assured: The watched pot DOES boil.  A few things to note: Heat is molecular movement. So when we add heat to a pot, we add movement.  When the molecules reach high enough energy, or are moving fast enough, they fly off into the air.  When the whole pot is boiling at the same time, we can see that the whole pot has reached that point.  A few questions: as it's boiling, where do the bubbles come from?  We saw on google that water boils at 212 degrees - is that what we observed in class?  If not, why not?  See me if you want a glass beaker to do this in, it just helps them see the bubbles.

Fifth Grade Ideas - Here's a great lesson for heredity.  You're probably familiar with the story of the peppered moth.  Check out this whole lab right here:  http://www.biologycorner.com/worksheets/peppermoth_paper.html

​ I don't always eat moths.  But when I do, I eat the more obvious ones first.  Natural selection - evolution in action!  Which traits offer a survival advantage?  

Sixth Grade Ideas - I hope everyone's ears and spirits are still ringing from home made instruments last week.  Sticking with our Heat, Light, and Sound standard, Here's a seriously cool demo about refraction.  You HAVE to show your kids the video. 

 http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/disappearing-glass-rods

Science Ideas for 3/4/2016

Kindergarten - Day and Night.  Here's a pretty straightforward lesson from UEN, lots of good stuff here with a few literature connections to boot.  It would be great to have them draw pictures of day / night activities, and write to describe them underneath.

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=28498​

First Grade - Here's our indicator: "Communicate observations about plants and animals, including humans, and how they resemble their parents."  Here's a great lesson I found with a lot of activities.  I especially like the matching cards, where they notice traits of the parent, and try to see which offspring match which parent.

http://www.harmonydc.org/Curriculum/pdf/1sample.pdf​

 Not a match, in this case.

Second Grade - We're reaching the tail end of rocks here.  Instead of a specific idea, I'll just link you to this page on UEN so you can look through and see if there's something you haven't gotten to yet.

http://www.uen.org/core/displayLessonPlans.do?courseNumber=3020&standardId=38875&objectiveId=38876

A great science practice that fits in here would be "Engaging in Arguments from Evidence."  Have the kids argue what kind of rock, igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic, a given sample might be.  They don't have to be right, but they do have to find some kind of evidence to argue their opinion.

Third Grade - Here's another one for this indicator: "Predict, measure, and graph the temperature changes produced by a variety of mechanical machines and electrical devices while they are operating. "  Observe the temperature difference between an incandescent bulb and a fluorescent or LED light bulb.  While they both output the same amount (roughly) of light, the incandescent puts out a lot more heat.  Meaning, it gets a lot hotter.  Now we know that fluorescent bulbs are supposed to be more efficient - how can we use this observation to confirm that one bulb is more efficient than the other?  (Hint: all that heat uses up energy.  We don't want a light bulb to get hot, we want it to put out light.  So the heat is wasted energy, or inefficiency.) 

Fourth Grade - Have the students explain in writing how a water molecule gets from an Arctic iceberg to the water fountain.  This process is more complex than it seems, and will really expose what your students know and don't know about the water cycle.  Give them a word bank with the following:  Evaporation, Precipitation, Condensation, Ocean, Ice, River, Rain, Snow, Runoff.  Include a picure or diagram of the water cycle, if your students would benefit from that kind f scaffolding.  Use one your kids are familiar with, or this:

Fifth Grade - We'll be on heredity from now until the end of the year.  This week, I want to highlight a really amazing program that can bring heredity right into your classroom.  It's called BioEyes, and they'll bring a live zebrafish experiment right to your classroom.  The kids take a week to follow the development of the zebrafish embryos by watching them develop through a microscope.  It is really cool, and a very authentic science experience.  It's a national program, and we have a partnership right here at the U. If you're interested, contact Judith Neugebaur  j.neugebauer@utah.edu.  You'll be psyched!

​

Sixth Grade - Here's an indicator: "Explain the relationship of the size and shape of a vibrating object to the pitch of the sound produced." No better way to do this than to make instruments.  Take a look at the flute below - doesn't get much easier than that.  You can also make a simple xylophone, or string instrument.  

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Single-Octave-Xylophone/

That link is self explanatory.  If you want to get daring, pick up a piece of 10' length of 1/2" conduit from Lowe's  for about $2.50.  That stuff makes surprisingly good keys.  Cut with a hacksaw, but watch out for burrs.  Or try a Diddly Bow, which is basically a one string guitar.  Check it out here:

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogs/scholastic-parents-learning-toolkit/make-it-diddley-bow-string-wonder

Make on of each, and have a class band!

Science Ideas for 2/26/2016

Kindergarten Ideas - Still on the indicator: "Compare the parts of different animals, e.g., skin, fur, feathers, scales; hand, wing, flipper, fin." Don't forget about bugs!  Here's a cool lesson about ants from UEN: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview?LPid=10666

Comparing and contrasting is a powerful way to help kids see meaning in the forms and functions of the structures in the natural world.

 Come give your Aunt a hug!

First Grade Ideas - "Analyze the individual similarities and differences within and across larger groups." Here's a simple idea, but one with a lot of potential: plant a bunch of bean seeds in cups, let them grow for a few days, and measure and record their heights.  It'll be a great mathematical measurement activity, they can graph their data, plus you'll hit thisscience indicator.  That's a win-win-win.

 Sprouts feel like spring.

Second Grade Ideas - Here's a very specific indicator: "Explain how smaller rocks come from the breakage and weathering of larger rocks."  There are a lot of ways to model this one.  Have the kids do some erasing, then look at the eraser shavings.  Use graham crackers as a math manipulative, then look at the crumbs.  I have some pieces of styrofoam they can break apart, then see how the little white specks break off.  All of these model the process of rocks breaking down, through a few mechanisms, to make smaller rocks.  Look at grains of sand under a microscope to see that each grain is actually just a little rock.  They'll start to put the pieces together to get that all rocks were once bigger rocks, and this process means that all rocks on our planet are slowly breaking down.  Water is the biggest factor here - rivers, rain runoff, ocean waves, and flash floods all show how this process occurs.  The freeze-thaw is also a big idea here.  Freeze a styrofoam cup of water, and it'll come out cracked apart.  This shows how ice expands as it freezes, which is a major force in breaking apart rocks.  They'll hit this all more explicitly in 4th grade, and again in 5th, but there's a good starting point.

 One day, this big guy will be a bunch of little rocks.

Third Grade Ideas - Continuing with heat and light.  Let's look at three indicators together:

1. Identify and classify mechanical and electrical sources of heat. 
   
2. List examples of mechanical or electrical devices that produce light. 
   
3. Predict, measure, and graph the temperature changes produced by a variety of mechanical machines and electrical devices while they are operating.
   

So, starting with indicator a).  This is a stupid indicator.  Quote me on that.  Here's what I want kids to know: all motion produces friction.   (The only thing we can practically look at that produces no friction is space stuff flying around in a vacuum, but everything else on Earth produces heat when it moves, through friction.)  Prove this a few ways.  Have the kids rub their hands together, or on their desk, or the carpet.  Easy to see the friction there.  Spin a toy car wheel, and eventually it stops.  Because of friction.  Sometimes it's harder to observe, like when a fan is running.  I'll gladly bring my fan-in-a-box demo by, but essentially we put a little fan in a closed box with a digital thermometer, and turn it on.  And the temperature climbs - it gets hotter and hotter inside that little box.  Somewhat because of friction, but also because electric motors produce heat as well.  This is by far the best way I've seen to tackle indicator c). Every machine produces heat, even a refrigerator.  If the kids don't believe you, take them down to the faculty room and have them feel under or behind the fridge.  It's warm, sometimes really warm, because the fridge is doing work to pump heat out of the inside.  So while the inside gets cooler, the outside gets warmer.  That's why the AC unit hangs out the window - it produces cool on one side, but heat on the other.

Anyway, there you can see all machines produce heat.  So with the whole mechanical vs. electrical machine thing, definitely talk about where a machine gets its energy.  Like a razor scooter vs. an electric scooter.  That is an interesting distinction.  I'm not sure why we'd want to classify them as electrical vs. mechanical in regards to producing heat.  All machines produce heat.  That would be like classifying salad bars by seeing which ones offer lettuce.  They all have lettuce.  Lettuce look at something more interesting.

 Where's the heat?  It's there, buddy.  I promise.

Fourth Grade Ideas - Water Cycle.  Central idea: where does all the energy come from that powers the water cycle?  Answer: the Sun.  Amazing, if you think about it.  Make sure that as you  explore the various parts of this system, kids understand that.  You might have them construct an argument, given a particular part of the water cycle, on how it's powered by the sun.  This is huge, and it's fundamental for their overall understanding of the system.  

Next, we've all heard that 97% of water is in the ocean, 2.something% is frozen in ice, and the tiny sliver left is our usable water.  But like all big numbers, this is meaningless without some help.  Check out this water cycle game: 

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/atmos/ll_whatacycle.htm

It covers a few important ideas, such as the fact that water often jumps around to various parts of the cycle, not just following a to b to c every time.  Second, look at the "discussion" section after the game.  We have various people standing there to represent the parts of the cycle, like the ocean, surface water, etc.  But obviously, this isn't proportional.  There's a lot more ocean water than surface water.  Here's the cool part: to get the proportions right, we'd need about 10,000 people to stand in for the ocean.  Then 5 people would stand in for the surface water. And 1 would stand in for the water in the atmosphere.  Now that's easier to visualize.  That'll help them understand the distribution better than saying things like "a fraction of a percent."

 All the water on Earth, visualized.  The big ball is the oceans.  The small one is the fresh water.  Squint, you'll see it.

Fifth Grade Ideas - Heredity, continued. If you're looking for a demonstration of characteristics that confer a survival advantage, it doesn't get much better than this Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments/transcript?language=en

I promise you will love showing that to your kids.  

​ Spot the octopus. Survival advantage! I tried doing this last time the dishes needed doing at my house.  It didn't work.

Sixth Grade Ideas - ​Week two for Heat, Light, and Sound.  Through all this, we're talking about energy.  Here's the upcoming Crosscutting Concept: Energy and matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation.  ​So within this idea of energy, I want to shore up a little more background knowledge for you the teacher.  Let's start with heat.  The thing we call heat is literally the movement of molecules.  All molecules are in motion - in gasses, they zing around.  In liquids, they float around and bump into each other. In solids, they stay more in place, but jiggle. All molecules do this.  The faster they're moving, the hotter we say that thing is.  The slower, the colder.  When you put your coke in the fridge, the molecules inside literally start slowing down.  If they stopped moving all together, we call that temperature absolute zero.  (Convection and conduction are thus the transfer of this kinetic energy - moving molecules bumping into other molecules make them move.  So the movement, the heat, is transferred.) 

Heat can also transfer through radiation.  This is a fundamentally different mechanism than the other two.  The long explanation is complicated, but basically this radiation follows the rules that light follows: it can move through a vacuum, it can travel long distances. etc. Think about your microwave - the microwaves themselves aren't "hot."  The only time they change into heat is when they interact with your food inside the microwave. But they themselves are not heat energy.  Radiation is closer to that.

Light is electromagnetic energy.  (Which is also kinetic, if you're following along at home.) Electromagnetic waves are created from moving charges, which your kids don't need to know.  But they do need to understand that it can travel without a medium, like through a vacuum.  (By comparison, mechanical forms of energy could not.) The electromagnetic spectrum is a fascinating thing, but we're focused on visible light here. Confusingly, radiation and visible light are both electromagnetic energy transfers, but mostly at a different wavelength.  Again, don't worry about teaching that part to the kids.  Here's what they need to know: light is energy.  It can travel through nothingness, like space.  

Sound is a form of mechanical energy. It is the same kind of energy as a ball rolling, or an earthquake, or a raindrop falling.  It happens to be vibrations, which travel in waves, but it is mechanical.  There's nothing special about sound that makes it different from any other form of stuff moving.  Now it just so happens that our ears sense vibrations in the air within certain frequencies, so we perceive it as different from other mechanical forces, like a snowball hitting the back of one's head.  But it's the same form of energy.  Use this framework of energy as you go through your various explorations of heat, light, and sound.

Science Ideas for 2/8/2016

Kindergarten Ideas - "Construct questions, give reasons, and share findings about all living things." This is a great combo with literacy.  Generating questions is a big drive for science education, so use this indicator to have the kids come up with really great questions about why certain animals look the way they do.  They'll need some help in researching the answers, but it could be fun to have them present one fact they learned to the class.  Sample questions might include: "Why do elephants have trunks?" "Why are flamingos pink?" or "Why does my dog snore so loud?" 

First Grade Ideas - "Communicate observations about plants and animals, including humans, and how they resemble their parents. "  Here's a cool activity from the Supplemental Material: "Using two different kinds (e.g., White pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin) of pumpkins (or other faster growing vegetable), students can investigate the relationship of seeds to pumpkins by dissecting seeds, planting seeds, and producing pumpkins. Students can compare the original pumpkins (parent) to the new pumpkins (offspring) to determine which offspring belongs to which parent. Record similarities and differences between generations as well as between the two different kinds.​" 

Now it might be a bit hard to find pumpkins in February, but you could do this with squash, or something along those lines.  I always liked to get a little greenery into my classroom in the dead of winter, so here's a great excuse for that.  Seem me if you need grow lights, but they're not strictly necessary if you're not planning to grow the plants to maturity.  

Second Grade Ideas - This is a great lesson on how rocks are formed. Check it out: 

http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview?LPid=5712

Lots to prep, but worth it.  Let me know if you need help gathering stuff.

Third Grade Ideas - Heat and Light.  I'll start off with a few easy ones. "Compare temperatures in sunny and shady places." Go outside, and see what parts of the playground still have snow.  Couldn't have an easier science exploration than that.  Have them construct an explanation in their science journals to explain it.   

"Identify and discuss as a class some misconceptions about heat sources (e.g., clothes do not produce heat, ice cubes do not give off cold).​" Put one thermometer on a table, and another wrapped in a jacket right next to it.  Predict which one will get warmer.  Spoiler Alert: neither!  Have them make a data table during the exploration.  Explain that coats hold in our body heat, which is why they make us feel warmer.  The ice one is going to be a little trickier.  It's important for them to know that heat is energy.  It's literally the movement of the molecules inside a thing, like the squirming of kids on a bus.  So there's no such thing as "unenergy" and scientifically speaking, there's no such thing as an energy of "cold."  There's just less heat.

Fourth Grade Ideas - Here's a bite sized one: "Describe how the water cycle relates to the water supply in your community." Watch the snow pack percentages change through out the season.  https://www.ksl.com/?nid=978  Discuss how our community is pretty unique in that we depend so heavily on our snow pack.  Look at a map of our watershed: http://www.mappery.com/map-of/Wasatch-Front-Watershed-Map​ compared with a topographical map, and see if they notice what creates the watershed boundaries.  Hint: Not all kids realize that water only flows downhill!  This is a great time to look at the general topography of our state, and see how we're different from California.  This map is a little hard to read, but it starts to get the idea across: http://weather.unisys.com/usgs/

I love maps!

Fifth Grade Ideas - Heredity.  For this week, I will give you one link.  It is amazing.  http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/

K I lied, here's a second link.  This one is for the position statement from the USOE about the E word: Evolution.  Here's the summary, which might surprise you: teach evolution.  It's scientific fact. 

Link, towards the top of the page: http://www.schools.utah.gov/CURR/science/Resources/Evolution.aspx

When I taught 5th grade, the common knowledge was "You're not allowed to teach evolution."  I'm not sure where this notion originated, and maybe once it was true, but it isn't anymore.  Thank goodness. Evolution is completely central to the ideas of heredity, and it belongs in our classrooms as a way to explain so much about the natural world.

And if anyone tells you "it's just a theory," fill them in on the fact that scientists use the word "theory" to mean a body of knowledge.  It's like music theory - experts are not still undecided if the C scale has any flats.

Sixth Grade Ideas - We're getting into Heat, Light, and Sound.  Let's start with heat, and what heat actually is.  Heat is the measurement of molecular motion in a thing.  Molecules are constantly in motion - in a gas, they zip around, in a liquid, they swim around, and in a solid, they jiggle.  This is all simplified, but it'll work for explaining to kids.  The measure of all this molecular motion is called heat.  So if we have a liquid that's hotter than another liquid, those molecules are actually moving around faster.  Show this with the good old "one drop of food coloring in a hot vs. cold liquid" thing.  The red one in the picture below is the hotter liquid - and look how much more the drop has spread out.  Because the molecules are moving around faster.  Again, as usual, it's actually a little more complicated than that, but that'll work for 6th graders.

So we know that "heat" means movement of molecules.  It's easier to see then how this energy is transferred.  If the person next to you keeps bumping into you, you'll receive some of their energy.  This "bumping into" is conduction.  Same mechanism with convection, except it's fluid molecules (gas or liquid) that are doing the bumping.  So as they get more excited, they can take up a little more space.  Imagine someone who's rocking out a little harder than everyone else at a concert - you'd give them a little more room.  More room means less density, hence why these things tend to rise.  As they heat up, they become less dense.  (Not so with solids, btw.)  So there's your convection: it's still molecules playing bumper cars, but now with a flow.  

Radiation is a whole different mechanism.  If the definition of heat is the movement of molecules, then with no molecules, there can be no heat.  Like in the vacuum of space.  But how then does the sun's heat reach us?  Well, it doesn't.  The sun's electromagnetic radiation reaches us.  Those waves can travel without a medium, like light.  Well, it is light.  Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation.  And when it hits our planets, it excites the molecules here, just like your microwave excites the molecules of your food.  But the microwave itself isn't producing heat - it's producing waves.  And those waves convert to heat, but only when they hit something.  Now it's a little confusing, because our sun also just happens to be really hot.  But the way that heat gets here is totally different from convection or conduction.