Transcript What are our kids learning?

Budget Friendly Science
Lessons 3-5
Sally Creel [email protected]
Marlee Tierce [email protected]
An electronic copy of this presentation is available at www.cicobb.typepad.com/es
Imagine your students are graduating….
They know all the facts and skills taught to
them over the years. All have learned fractions
and earth science. They can read a great novel
and write a perfect persuasive essay. They all
have perfect CRCT scores. However, they have
no passion, no wonder about life and the human
condition. They are indifferent to nature and
the environment. They rarely vote, they have
little knowledge of what is happening in the
country and the world, and they fill their days
largely with working, watching TV, surfing the
Internet, and shopping.
Source: PDK October 2008
Experiments you can do with your kids in the coming weeks…
Birds and Worms
• Punch out or cut out several colors of
butterflies.
• Sprinkle them on different colors of
construction paper, wrapping paper,
newspaper, or fabric.
– Have them pick up (using only their thumb and
forefinger) one bug at a time and put it on the
side.
• OR
– Have them count the number
of butterflies they see in one minute.
Water Cycle Baggie – S4E3
• Gallon Zippy Bag
• Markers
• Sand & Water
• Put in sunny
spot for an
hour or two &
see what
happens!
Chemical Reaction in a Baggie
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Baking Soda
Calcium chloride
Water
Indicator
Constructive &
Destructive S5E1
• Washcloth faults
• Wind Erosion
• Sugar Cube Earthquakes
Rolling Marbles
• Use a ruler with a grooved surface in the center.
• Place five marbles in a row touching each other in
the center groove of the ruler.
• Roll a sixth marble down the groove into the
marbles standing still.
• Repeat the experiment, but this time roll two
marbles into the roll of five.
• Continue to do this adding one more marble each
time.
Don’t lose your
marbles over this!
Cell Models – S5L3
•Turn your door into a giant
cell model. Make one door
a plant cell and the other
an animal cell.
•Have the kids create the
parts and decorate.
Moon Phases – S4E2a,b
Shocking Static
• Plastic Wrap and Paper Towels
– Hands
– Yarn
– Thread
– Paper
– Aluminum foil
– Rice Krispies
Sugar Cube Erosion –
S3E1d
• Rub two sugar cubes together over black
paper. This simulates what happens to
rocks bumping into each other and being
weathered.
• Use a pipet to slowly drop water on a
sugar cube. Again showing
how water can weather
rock.
Star Sizes –S4E1a
To demonstrate the size of different types of stars
using the following items:
Supergiant – represented by a soccer ball
Super – represented by a tennis ball
Medium (our sun) – represented by a ping
pong ball
Dwarf – represented by a marble
Then challenge your students to come up with other
items to model the different star sizes.
Construction Paper Food Chains
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Yellow paper (sun)
Green paper (plants/producers)
Blue paper (herbivores)
Red paper (carnivores)
Tape
Markers
Chicken Sounds
• Tie one end of a piece of string to the
middle of a paper clip.
• Use a pencil to poke the other end of the
string through the bottom of a paper cup.
• Hold the cup with one hand and wet the
string and your finger and thumb of the
other hand.
• Squeeze the string and slide your fingers
along the string quickly.
GA Habitats – S3L1
• Have students draw or cut out various GA plants
& animals from magazines. Or request a set of
GA habitats posters from the DNR.
• Paste on chart or put posters on the wall.
• Give children a fly swatter with a hole cut out of
the middle.
• Play Swatter by calling out specific
characteristics of a plant/animal or a region of
GA where it would be found.
• The first kid to swat a correct plant/animal gets a
point.
Straw Oboe
• Flatten the end of a plastic straw.
• Cut the corners off of the flattened end to make
an inverted V.
• With practice, you can produce a sound by
blowing into the straw.
• Putting this straw into a straw with a larger
diameter can make a straw trombone to change
pitch.
• Clipping off the straw will make the pitch change.
My New Pet – S3L1
“I’m thinking of getting a new pet and I need your
advice. I’ve always loved fish and I’m thinking
about buying a cage to keep it in while I’m at
school, but I think I’m going to let it sleep with me
at night. I figure that since fish are so small they
only need to eat once a week. I think I can just
feed it leftovers from my dinner. What do you
think?”
- Once kids stop looking at you like you’re crazy…
have them explain why your plan won’t work. This
will lead you into your discussion about needs of
animals and habitats.
Light & Heat Demo
The Great State Debate
• Oobleck
• Shaving Cream