Science PL and Resources
Don't forget about the amazing units on Science Learning Hub! This is a great unit on soil moisture content. Love this unit! Great obvious links to the key science capabilities
AWESOME TEACHING PACK ON THE SOLAR SYSTEM (SENIORS)
could be great as a homework task, science lessons or extra literacy task.
Optical Illusions
Remember this amazing website when thinking about teaching science
Balancing Nails
Conservation Week
10-18 September
Check out some cool activities here: http://eepurl.com/cdssXT
Mystery Boxes
I have created some mystery boxes. You have to use your senses (like a scientist) to make inferences about what you think is inside.
SCIENTISTS MAKE INFERENCES BASED ON THE INFORMATION THEY HAVE AVAILABLE AT THE TIME
Think about how people used to think the world was flat based on the ovservations they had made.
Key Questions
1: what can you hear? smell? feel?
2: what could it be? why do you think that?
3: what else could it be?
Gather & interpret data
Learners make careful observations and differentiate between observation and inference.
Science knowledge is based on data derived from direct, or indirect, observations of the natural physical world and often includes measuring something. An inference is a conclusion you draw from observations – the meaning you make from observations. Understanding the difference is an important step towards being scientifically literate.
pH indicator
We found that vinegar, lemon juice and tartic acid were all acidic.
We found that the dishwashing liquid green colour was very strong when we tried to test it and nothing happened. We also found that bleach turned the indicator colourless!
We will make up some more indicator solution and find some alkaline ingredients.
More information on acids and bases
STATIC ELECTRICITY
 |
| We had fun with static electricity. Look what happened to Marc's hair when we rubbed the ballon on his head. |
Look what happened when we rubbed the balloon on our hair and then put it near salt or tissue paper!
I wonder what would happen if you put the balloon near running water from a tap?
I wonder what would happen if you put the balloon near pepper or baking powder?
I wonder what else you can rub the balloon against to make static electricity?
I wonder what would happen if we put an aluminium tin near the balloon?
I wonder what would happen if we put two balloon near each other (after rubbing them on our hair)?
What's happening?
Rubbing the balloons against the woollen fabric or your hair creates static electricity. This involves negatively charged particles (electrons) jumping to positively charged objects. When you rub the balloons against your hair or the fabric they become negatively charged, they have taken some of the electrons from the hair/fabric and left them positively charged.
They say opposites attract and that is certainly the case in these experiments, your positively charged hair is attracted to the negatively charged balloon and starts to rise up to meet it. This is similar to the aluminium can which is drawn to the negatively charged balloon as the area near it becomes positively charged, once again opposites attract.
In the first experiment both the balloons were negatively charged after rubbing them against the woolen fabric, because of this they were unattracted to each other.The Magic School Bus is great for getting some extra science into your programme/inquiry
Suzy's world, Steve Spangler and Bill Nye Science Guy also have great stuff
Great websites to do science experiments at home:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/
http://sciencelearn.org.nz/
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments.html
EASY 10 min or less experiments.. tried and tested
We did a unit this week on writing instructions. Our context was science experiments. I told the kids that you were the audience and we would write them up so you could do these experiments with your class.
My Model - how to write up instructions. This was our first experiment. We read through the instructions and highlighted the bullet points, numbers, title and verbs to show what a good write up looks like.
Colour
Mixing Candy
Materials
·
Flat
bottomed dish
·
Water
·
Gobstoppers
or m & ms
Instructions
1. Fill a dish with enough water to cover
the bottom.
2. Drop a Gobstopper of a different colour
along the edge of the dish.
3. Now watch the colours!
The next day we did some oil and water experiments. We read the book Oli on Water (a purple book). One of my students then bought in some feathers and fur she had covered with oil at home and showed us the effects. We decided to look at density and see if oil and water mixed. We then moved on and made it into a lava lamp by adding a borrocca tablet.
Oil on water.
Make a lava lamp
We then did the famous MOVING MILK experiment which the kids loved. We watched the youtube clip, wrote instructions then did the experiment. After that we went and showed another class these experiments.
Although my focus was on writing instructions we still did science experiments. We made observations, drew and wrote what happened. We said why we thought thing happened and what we could change with the experiments. We did a lot of wondering and questioning.
Remember, we want the children to know:
- we are doing science
- scientists work together
- scientists make observations and record them
- scientists record what they did (their method) so it can be repeated by other scientists
- scientists ask questions and collaborate with other scientists
- scientists have a vocabulary
AUTUMN SCIENCE
Click on the picture for experiments on why leaves change colour in autumn.
Click on the picture to take you to the original
Click on the picture to take you to the original
My kids absolutely loved getting outside with this in their jottings. We found each object and used adjectives to describe what we had noticed. We also wrote down what it was doing. Back in class the kids wrote so beautiful descriptive pieces.
OBSERVATIONS
Scientists make observations and looks at similarities and differences.
Some things to consider observing:
- leaves
- stones
- plants
- feathers
- stones/pips from fruit
- nuts
- fabrics
Use your senses.
Use magnifying glasses.
Use Dinoscope/Microscope.
Magnets
Why not try a map like this to make your observations? Draw the picture and label in the middle.
Try comparing two leaves. What do they both have? What are different.
Comments
Post a Comment