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.  

Science Ideas for 2/1/2016

Engineering edition. Engineering is the process of design.  We design tons of things for many reasons, and incorporate many different disciplines in the process. It’s great in the classroom because it doesn’t require feedback from the teacher – the students test their design, and learn from evidence they observe, not from the teacher.  Then they make changes to see if they can make it more successful.  (This is called “iterative” design, which means repeating.) Engineering is coming in the new science standards, and this week, I’ll give you an idea for a simple engineering project for your grade level that supports your current science standard.  Make it easy, and do a quick 20 minute lesson on it, or take it into a weeklong exploration.  Either way, I promise your kids will learn a lot about the standard at hand.

Kindergarten Engineering – We’re just starting to look at night/day and the effects of the sun’s heat on the planet.  Take a look at this engineering challenge – it examines the effect of color on the melting of an ice cube:  https://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=collection/wpi_/activities/wpi_colors_absorb_heat_better/colors_absorb_heat_better.xml

I have a heat lamp if you want to borrow one – not a lot of sun forecast for the next two weeks.  Here’s my spin that makes that more of an engineering challenge: You have one piece of paper.  You can cut, tape, glue, whatever.  How can you use your piece of paper to keep your ice cube from melting the longest?  Or melt the quickest?  That would be interesting up through 6^th grade, actually.

First Grade – Here’s an indicator: “Analyze the individual similarities and differences within and across larger groups.” Look at your class as a “population” or “larger group.”  Choose a characteristic that varies across that population, like shoe size.  Have the kids design something that would work for “most” 1^st graders, like an adjustable roller skate.  In doing so, they’ll have to take a critical look at how that characteristic varies across that population, how it’s the same, and how it’s different.  Less likely that you’ll be able to test this one, but it’s the best idea I had!

Second Grade Engineering – From the core: “Sort rocks based upon color, hardness, texture, layering, particle size and type (i.e. igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary).”  Have the kids design a way to sort rocks.  We can go by any characteristic they notice.  The key here is we’re trying to get them to notice the different things have in common, and what makes they different.  Designing systems is certainly a form of engineering!  Does their system help us tell rocks apart?  Can another student use that system and get similar results when sorting the same group of rocks? 

Third Grade Engineering – Simple machines lend themselves so easily to engineering.  Here’s your indicator: “Investigate how forces applied through simple machines affect the direction and/or amount of resulting force.” Have the kids design a way to use at least two simple machines to move something moderately heavy (like a handcover book) 1m sideways and 1m up or down inside your classroom.

Fourth Grade Engineering – “Describe the water cycle.”  So many things would work great here.  Design a solution to maximize or minimize evaporation, or condensation.  Actually build them, and test them. Design a way to collect rainwater.  How about a way to filter water.  For more advanced students, engineer a model that shows all three phase changes of water, or all the various “ation” words within the water cycle. Go nuts.

Fifth Grade Engineering – To cap off changes in matter, have them engineer a way to prove conservation of matter in any of the following situations: vinegar and baking soda reacting in a soda bottle, melting a snowball, burning a birthday candle, or growing a plant.  They could actually build these things (no flames in class) or draw their designs.  This would require more teacher input, but they will come away with an incredibly deep understanding of the process.  Especially the plant one.  Bonus points for any teacher who can figure that one out.

Sixth Grade Engineering – To finish up with the moon, have the students engineer a way to track the moon’s motion across the sky through one day.  “Compare how objects in the sky (the moon, planets, stars) change in relative position over the course of the day or night.”  My solution was the soda straw modeling clay thing, I’d love to see what your students can come up with. A stonehenge?  Marks on a window?  You’ll be surprised how deeply this problem makes them think about the motion of the moon.  Test those designs!  See if they actually work.

Enjoy, and see me with any questions or for clarification!

Science Ideas for 1/25/2016

Howdy teachers!  I gotta tell you – I’m reading this new book on anti-gravity.  I can’t put it down.  Just kidding, onto science.  Lots of grade levels get to start new standards this week according to the pacing map, so this email will be a doozey.

Kindergarten – We’re on to k.4.2 – “Describe the parts of living things.” Lots to do here!  Just do you know, in later grades they’ll be focusing on how these different parts offer survival advantages to these living things, so keep that in the back of your mind as you’re putting this together.  Here’s a great excerpt from the Supplemental Material from the USOE: “ Have students compare/contrast the differences and similarities between animal structures. Ask them to investigate using the following questions (and others that you or your students choose):

Do all animals look the same? What are the major differences between specific types of animals? (ex. Compare a duck to a snake to a dog)”   

First Grade Ideas – We’re looking at a related objective in 1^st grade, 1.4.1: “Communicate observations about the similarities and differences between offspring and between populations.”  So the offspring are the animal’s young, and the population being the group as a whole.  Indicator (a) gets more specific: “Communicate observations about plants and animals, including humans, and how they resemble their parents.”  Here’s another good idea from the Supplemental Material, again from the USOE: “Students can create a family tree poster with photographs or drawings (FA). Working in groups, students can identify similarities and differences in characteristics when comparing offspring to parents and siblings to siblings.”

Second Grade Ideas – Rocks!  I’m jealous – teaching rocks is a blast.  Let’s look at this objective: “Describe the characteristics of different rocks.”  Pretty straight forward.  I like to start with this indicator: “Describe rocks in terms of their parts (e.g. crystals, grains, cement).” It  builds some common language for other indicators.  Here is some background knowledge for you teachers.  Don’t think about rocks as cold lumps sitting here on the table - think about rocks as having a story.  They were formed possibly billions of years ago, they have undergone changes, and now they’re here.  The rock itself holds many clues about its story.  Unfortunately for your classroom, the location where it was found also has a huge part to play in telling that story.  When a rock sample is removed from its location, we lose some of that information, which is ok, but just realize that.  So it’s pretty hard to answer the question: “what kind of rock is this?” when a child brings you one she found on the playground.  But we can start to look for clues, and we can notice a whole lot of interesting things about that rock, even if we can’t say for certain that it’s quartzite.  If you’re not comfortable with the three kinds of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic, read here: http://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/igneous-sedimentary-metamorphic-rocks/  So a lot of that language – crystals, layers, grains, cement, it’s part of this idea of story.  Here’s the activity, from the Supplemental Material: “Using age‐appropriate tools (magnifying glass, water, sandpaper, hammer), students can examine rock samples and describe their parts. The products could include: drawings, charts, journals, or classroom books.” If you’re going to use hammers, see me for some safety glasses.

Third Grade Ideas – Don’t miss the cool PD with Clark Planetarium on Tuesday Feb 9^th at Rose Park at 4:30. You should have gotten an email about it, but if you didn’t, let me know.  This week we’re wrapping up forces, motion, and gravity.  Review that stronger (or larger) forces cause a greater change in the object they’re affecting.  This can be from a harder push, or a faster push, or a push from a more massive thing.  Gravity is a force we have to overcome if we want to go up.  And gravity pulls everything back down, towards the center of the Earth.  The more mass something has, the stronger gravity pulls, so we say it has more weight.  With gravity, distance matters.  So if we get far enough away from Earth, its gravitational pull diminishes.  (It’s an inverse square law, for the math nerds.  Thanks, Newton!)  Bonus points: everything has a gravitational pull of its own, proportional to its mass.  So you have gravity!  So does that paper clip.  Just not very much.

Fourth Grade Ideas – Water Cycle.  Does it get any better in 4^th grade?  Not for my money.  Let’s look at this indicator: “Locate examples of evaporation and condensation in the water cycle (e.g., water evaporates when heated and clouds or dew forms when vapor is cooled).”  Let’s start with the most concrete, in my opinion: evaporation.  Leave out a pan of water, and to no one’s surprise, it evaporates.  For a little more fun, do two pans, one with fresh water and one with salt water.  Compare the two pans after evaporation.  Or place two identical pans in two different locations and compare rates of evaporation.  Or if you want something else that’s cool, evaporate water next to some rubbing alcohol.  Notice the difference.  So we established that the water is evaporating, what next?  Discuss how water can turn into a gas.  It’s hard for kids to get this, because they won’t have solid/liquid/gas until 5^th grade, but that’s what’s going on. We can’t see this water vapor – it’s invisible.  If you think you’re seeing water vapor, like steam or fog, you’re actually seeing little drops of liquid water that have condensed from the gaseous form back to the liquid, and are now suspended in the air.  But that’s a liquid. The amount of water vapor that air can “hold” depends on its temperature.  So a change in temperature will cause the gaseous water vapor to change into liquid.  Imagine a hot air balloon that’s losing altitude – jettison some cargo!  That cargo would be analogous to our water, and it falls as condensation.  Warm air hits your cold soda can, and as the air cools, some of its water vapor turns to liquid.  The mechanisms behind all this have everything to do with temperature as a measure of average molecular energy.  

Fifth Grade Ideas – Changes in Matter.  Last week, we looked at conservation of matter – that it cannot be created nor destroyed.  This week, we’ll tackle a bigger: chemical vs. physical changes.  Here’s all the stuff from the core:

Evaluate evidence that indicates a physical change has occurred.

a.           Identify the physical properties of matter (e.g., hard, soft, solid, liquid, gas).

b.           Compare changes in substances that indicate a physical change has occurred.

c.           Describe the appearance of a substance before and after a physical change.

Investigate evidence for changes in matter that occur during a chemical reaction.

a.           Identify observable evidence of a chemical reaction (e.g., color change, heat or light given off, heat absorbed, gas given off).

b.           Explain why the measured weight of a remaining product is less than its reactants when a gas is produced.

c.           Cite examples of chemical reactions in daily life.

d.           Compare a physical change to a chemical change.

e.           Hypothesize how changing one of the materials in a chemical reaction will change the results.

There’s a lot there, and I’m sure you have lots of activities to do to demonstrate both types of changes.  So I’ll focus on the background knowledge that’ll help you teach these things.  First, chemical changes mean a new chemical is created.  Sometimes this is easy to observe – vinegar and making soda produce carbon dioxide.  But for kids, sometimes something looks like a new chemical when in fact it’s not.  Ice and liquid water seem like totally different chemicals, so a kid might conclude that ice melting means a new chemical is created.  So that’s what you’re up against – building up that large body of background knowledge about different chemicals. Most physical changes are pretty obviously not creating something new – gluing paper together, or breaking a glass.  The ones that are trickier tend to be phase changes.  In phase changes (solid to liquid, liquid to gas, etc.) something a little more mysterious seems to be going on, because the properties of that material change so dramatically.  Just play with that stuff a lot, and go back to their knowledge about the water cycle.  We’ll cover phase changes a little bit more next week because there are some key things I want to discuss about the nature of temperature.  But that should be enough for this week.  See me if you need some examples or demos.

Sixth Grade Ideas – Just in time for the end of your unit on the solar system, they found a 9^th planet!  Sorta.  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html?_r=0  Talking about how they “discovered” it is a perfect example of: “Describe the role of computers in understanding the solar system.”  Doesn’t get much better than that!  I hope all those Pluto boo-hooers feel better now. In other news, I have the lenses to build a primitive but functional Galilean Telescope.  That accomplishes this: “Describe the use of instruments to observe and explore the moon and planets.” And these: “Relate science's understanding of the solar system to the technology used to investigate it. Find and report on ways technology has been and is being used to investigate the solar system.” Give me a specific time and date and we’ll set it up.  If we do it in the first week of February, we can look at the moon because it’ll be up in the morning then.

Science Ideas for 1/11/2016

Kindergarten – “Compare and contrast young plants and animals with their parents.”  This one’s pretty straight forward – babies and adults.  Lots to do here, especially with the baby animals that don’t look like their parents – such as frogs, caterpillars, etc.  If you want to go the inquiry route, you could have the kids research what a baby animal looks like, what the adults look like, and compare and contrast them.  They could learn if the babies are oviparous or viviparous, if their mothers stay with them, etc. 

First Grade – “Indicator 1. Observe and record how objects move in different ways, e.g., fast, slow, zigzag, round and round, up and down, straight line, back and forth, slide, roll, bounce, spin, swing, float, and glide.” This is a great time of year for sink or float. This is actually a rich and fascinating topic with much more complexity than we usually give it credit for.  Look here for some discussion, framed around common misconceptions: https://www.ied.edu.hk/apfslt/v6_issue1/costu/costu5.htm

Second Grade – With another storm possibly moving through this weekend, it’s a great time to wrap up weather.  Do some more outside observations of temperature, etc.  Here’s one of our indicators: “Analyze and interpret data such as temperatures in different locations and different times. “ Take a look at this climograph:

http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate-on-your-site.php?id=usut0225

It’s a little dense for second graders, but you can find some trends together.  Start simple – which months are hottest, and which are coldest?  Just for fun, does precipitation seem related to temperature?  Look at the image below.  What can we see about temperature differences across the state?  Why do you think we get that “finger” of cooler weather that goes diagonally down across the state?  I’ll write the answer here backwards: (Sniatnuom eht!) 

Third Grade – A little more gravity. Examine the fact that a ball rolled off a table and a ball dropped from the same height will hit the floor at the exact same time.  This is counter intuitive for the kids – they’ll think the ball with sideways motion would take longer to hit the floor, because it’s… moving.  But the sideways motion has no effect whatsoever on the speed at which it falls. 

Another example would be to “shoot” a rubber band off your finger, and drop one at the same time.  Which one lands first?  It’s a tie!  Or shoot a nerf dart exactly level, and drop a nerf dart from the same height at the same time.  It’s a little tricky to get your data, but they should hit at exactly the same time. 

You can now shoot that nerf dart straight up in the air.  Maybe in the gym.  Look at the fact that it was fighting gravity for its whole flight up.  If it had enough force, and could push itself far enough away from the Earth, eventually the force of gravity would lessen as the distance increased.  This is how a rocket can break free of Earth’s gravity – it takes a lot of force to get up there!

One other mind blower about gravity – every particle of matter has a gravitational pull.  So while the Earth is pulling on us, we’re all pulling back on the Earth.  The pull is proportional to our mass, so as you can imagine, it’s infinitesimal.  But the moon pulls on Earth too, with a force that’s not infinitesimal.  That pull is partially responsible for the tides, for example.  But there’s nothing special about a planet that gives it gravity.  Every single thing in the universe has a gravitational pull.  It just doesn’t add up to much, unless it’s a pretty massive body.  And really massive things have much more gravity, like a star.  

Fourth Grade – I’m going to point you to an incredibly useful pool of resources from the SETS PD coordinated by my esteemed colleague, Candace Penrod.  I won’t pretend to be able to communicate everything about their effectiveness in a short email, but start exploring and see what’s there.  I’ll draw your attention to one piece at a time to start sorting through, and this week, it’s the geologic time powerpoint.  Find it here:

http://www.slcschools.org/departments/curriculum/science/Fossilsst4.php#.VpUfl3bnsgs

Here’s the link to the rest of it: http://www.slcschools.org/departments/curriculum/science/SETSPD.php#.VpUhZ3bnsgt

As you can see, fifth grade is already starting to accumulate info for their upcoming cohort.

Fifth Grade – Changes in matter!  This unit is great fun, and there’s a lot here.  Let’s bite off this little piece, which is Objective 1: “Describe that matter is neither created nor destroyed even though it may undergo change.” Talk about profound truths of science.  Let me know if you need to borrow little digital scales to play with this idea.  There are so many ways to do it – dissolve a little salt in water, watch it disappear, but notice that the mass is still there.  Go grab a bowl of snow, (cover with plastic wrap so you don’t lose any to evaporation) and watch the mass stay exactly the same as it melts.  Drop half an alka-seltzer tablet in a tiny water bottle with a bit of water inside, and watching the mass drop as it dissolves and the gas escapes.  Then do it again, and capture the gas with a balloon.  No drop in mass.  Do a few simple ones like weighing 5-6 lego blocks, then snapping them together and seeing that it’s the same mass.  Take them apart, weigh them again, still the same.  Talk about a few examples where it looks like matter is destroyed, like burning a birthday candle.  Pretty much all those examples have the matter escaping as a gas.  There you have it – conservation of matter.

Sixth Grade – If you need one more piece to wrap up your solar system unit, check this out.  This one is from Kearney District in Missouri, though I’ve seen many like it.  It’s a simulation where the kids create a travel brochure for a planet in our solar system, and gather a lot of knowledge to do so.  See this link:

http://elearning.kearney.k12.mo.us/~thomast/PlanetBrochureProject.html

They’ll need lots of information like its distance from the sun, atmosphere, etc.  It’s a fun way to get them engaged.

That’s it for this week!  Science on.