Science Learning Cycle Activities Sec 04 Spring 2013

Activity Title (author)

When Thunder Roars, Stay Indoors (Emily C)
Grade Level

What students will be doing

Students will be mimicking the sounds of a thunderstorm with their bodies and other materials. They will be exploring the safety precautions needed to take during a thunderstorm as well as categorizing them into safe and unsafe categories. Students will be exploring object properties in terms of what makes an object sink and what makes an object float. They will be exploring objects on their own and brainstorming properties that made it sink or float. They will then perform a structured experiment and discuss with each other what they have discovered. Students will be learning about the characteristics of living and nonliving things through investigations, a scavenger hunt, and by creating a classroom T-chart. They will also be creating their own test to determine if an object is living or nonliving based on evidence. Students explore solids, liquids and gases. Students will expand on their learning about the 3 states of matter. They will apply their knowledge to H2O and discover how water can be a solid, liquid, and gas. Students will learn about the formation of craters and conduct two different experiments to discover what causes the different features of impact craters! One experiment will be conducted to see the effects of the size of the rock, and the other will be to see the effects of the drop height. Students explore and observe occurrences in the changes of matter. They learn that matter consists of particles too small to be seen. They explore how heat affects the movement of particles in liquids and gases. Students will be learning about the water cycle and its importance for our Earth. Students will experiment with magnets to discover what kinds of things are attracted to magnets and what kinds of materials are not. Students will also learn about North and South poles of a magnet and what a magnetic field is. In this hands-on, inquiry lesson students will be learning about the difference between rocks and minerals, as well as learning about the rock cycle.

Will It Sink or Float? (Kristin)

Whats Living & Nonliving Around You (Christa R)

Whats in My Balloon? (Cyndi) Meet My Friend, Mr. H2O (Kelli)

2 3-4

Cool Craters (Jami)

3-5

Matter Madness (Kristina)

3-5

Wonderful Water Cycle (Magness) I Am Attached to You: An Introduction to Magnetism (Becky)

3-5 3-5

This Rocks! (Kait)

3-5

What Happened to the Earth? (Samantha) Solar System (Ally)

3-5

Students will observe and identify the effects of weathering in their environment. They will be conducting experiments and hands on activities through group work. Students will be learning about the properties of the solar system by categorizing objects that represent planets. Students will also research a specific aspect of the solar system, create a poster, and present it to the class. Students will be playing with and learning about light energy. They will learn about the transitions of energy involving light. They will learn new vocabulary words and be able to test the transparency of objects and light. Students will be working collaboratively in groups, using the software Kidspiration, to design the solar system, locating each planet in their correct orbit. Students will be learning how to conduct a simple investigation while using simple equipment to gather data to arrive at a reasonable explanation. They will also be communicating the investigations and explanations to each other and the teacher to describe the properties of magnets and to explain why some materials are magnetic and some are not. Students will explore the science of why we have seasons. Students will participate in an art activity where students can paint or draw and write about one of the seasons. Students will be pretending to be a droplet of water that travels through 9 different places: Ground Water, Glaciers, Animals, Soil, Rivers, Plants, Clouds, Oceans, and Lakes. They will learn about the water cycle through these activities. Students will learn about density through experimenting with dropping items into different liquids and observing if they sink or float. Students will learn that density is the ratio of mass to volume. Students will draw conclusions from experimenting about a liquids density compared to water as well as the density of certain objects. Students will learn about simple electricity and batteries by making a homemade battery and developing a simple electrical circuit to light a low current LED bulb. They will also explore electrical conductors and nonconductors and current flow. Students will be exploring what density is and the implications that density has on floating and sinking. They will be make predictions about how items will act under water, and gather data such as mass and volume for the objects in order to compare the objects density to whether it sank or floated. Students will work in small groups to design ways to test the characteristics of water versus other liquids that appear to look like water. Students will be able to describe how to distinguish water from other clear liquids. Students will critique themselves

3-5

Light Up the World (Stephanie C)

3-5

Lets Explore the Solar System (Haley)

3-5

Magnetic Pick-ups (Erin H)

3-5

Exploring the Seasons (Francesca)

3-5

The Incredible Water Journey (Emily M)

3-5

Sink or Float (Kelsey H)

3-5

You Light Up My Life (Jeff)

4-6

To Sink or to Float: That is the Question (Sarah J)

5-6

6-8 How Does One Know Its Water? (Ryan)

on the effectiveness and efficiency of their methods for investigating.

Chromatography Detectives (Meghan M)

6-8

Students will be building on their previous knowledge of color and mixtures by learning about how to separate colors using chromatography. They will manipulate variables in the chromatography process such as solvent, marker and paper and use their prior knowledge of chromatography in a way similar to the work of forensic scientists as they determine if the suspect is innocent or guilty. Students will describe how water moves throughout a water cycle and will be able to identify the state of water as it moves though the water cycle. They will also be able to describe the importance of water to living things.

A Drop in the Ocean (Jenna G)

6-8