M & M's!

Ah, so many lab choices with solubility.  So many things one can do...

I stumbled upon this GREAT website: http://www.inquiryinaction.org/classroomactivities/topic.php?topic=Solubility

DAY 1:  So, we started out by finding out if temperature makes a difference in the rate that an M & M's colored coating dissolves in water.  Students designed their tests, and most of them chose to test the SAME colored M & M (controlled variable) and the SAME amount of water (controlled variable).  They filled one container with hot water and one with cold.

Here is a picture of one group's containers:

It's not hard to see that very little of the colored coating is left in the hot water, and more is visible in the cold water.

This lab led to a discussion about what students already know about molecules and how they move when hot vs. cold.  Students quickly understood why the hot water would dissolve the M & M colored coating faster.

DAY 2:  Next, students had to see if a solution of sugar would make a difference in the rate that the colored coating of the M & M's dissolved.  The controlled variable were the color of the M & M's, amount of water, and the temperature of the water.

Put the M & M's in...

It doesn't take long to see the color on the bottom of the bowls.

You might not be able to tell in the picture, but the bottom of the "no sugar" bowl is covered lightly in green, the "1tsp sugar" bowls is green around the outside, and the "3 tsp sugar" bowl is green in a crescent shape.  Therefore, the "no sugar" M & M coating dissolved the fastest, and the "3 tsp sugar" bowl dissolved the slowest.  This happened, because the sugar solution is MORE DENSE than the water, so it is harder for the candy coating to "push" on the solution than the water.

More FUN in science!  Learn on, kids!

D=M/V

Sunday, while perusing the wonderful Pinterest, I stumbled upon this:
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/experiment/colorful-convection-currents .  Check out the video.  (It is blocked at my school.  Grrr.)

So, I decided to try this today with my students, since we are learning about Density.  You must have containers with equal size openings.  I luckily found some and filled two of them with cold water and two of them with hot water.  I then put blue food coloring in the cold water and yellow food coloring in the hot water.  (Forgive my pictures.  I did not have my camera today, so these are phone pictures.  My phone unfortunately does not take great pictures.)

My intention was to show the demonstration just as in the video, but we ended up just using the taller containers.  (This was quite exciting for my first block.)  I covered the cold water container with a note card and flipped it over.  If you do this quickly, none of the water will spill, and the card will suction to the container.  Then, I placed the cold (blue) water container on top of the hot and gently pulled the card out from under it.

Students remembered what they knew about cold and hot water and their density, and they made predictions about what would happen when the two mix.  (Most actually predicted that I would make a terrible mess and didn't work.  I proved them wrong!)

Students can easily see that the warmer water rises to the top, because it is less dense.

Next, students rapped (Yes, rapped.  I forced them.) the formula for density:

Density = Mass

                 Volume

I found this great handout with practice exercises:

http://home.comcast.net/~judkinsscience8/Files/Forces%20in%20Fluids/1_5_Density_wksh.pdf

Rap on!

Amazing Bubbles

This post could be considered off task.  It's not school-related, but it is science related.  The littles and I were playing outside in the BEAUTIFUL Fall weather on Sunday, and Tiny Little decided she wanted to blow bubbles.  She LOVES bubbles.  Actually, she loves the solution; licking it, drinking it, splashing in it.  Anyway, I decided this was a great time to try the Bubble Cups that one of my "Junior Scientists" (see first post) used in her experiment! 

Here are the instructions:
Cut hole in the bottom of a plastic cup.  I used red Solo cups.  Mix dish soap and water in a plate or bowl.  Stir. 
Place the large opening of the cup in the solution and pull out, so that you see a film covering the entire opening. 
Blow through the hole. 

We LOVED this, because even the littles can make bubbles!  We all know that bubble wands are very frustrating to little kids!

Here is Big Little blowing his bubble, trying not to crack up.  What a ham!

Here is Tiny Little's reaction to his bubble.

The Density Propensity

Today was DENSITY DAY.  No, it wasn't a holiday or really anything too exciting, but I L.O.V.E. teaching physical science ANYTHING, because of the endless possibilities of LABS.  I heart labs.  Kids heart labs, too.  So, I went to the very faithful grocery store and purchased lemons, limes, grapes, eggs, and hard boiled eggs w/out shells. (Did you know you can buy them in bags already de-shelled?  How awesome is that?!  Lazy, yes, but AWESOME.)  I had some pencil top erasers, so I used those, too.  I asked the kids to make a chart of "Float/Sink," and I told the items I had.  I wrote them down, and the kids placed them in their predicted columns of which items [listed above] that they thought would sink or float.  We discussed why they think items float or sink, and there was a pretty big consensus about light items floating and heavier items sinking.  This is when we began our test.  I started out with this container under the document camera:

This container was TOO shallow.  We couldn't tell if these items were floating or sinking.  Fail.  So, we moved to these:

Buckets are nice.  I have lots of them, so we had four large groups.  Students could at least record data according to which items sank or floated.  They were very surprised that the lemon was the only item to float.

I led students to the idea of density.  The cool thing is that we have been learning about atoms and elements, so the students understand the atomic mass in the Periodic Table.  They could look up the atomic mass of Hydrogen and Oxygen, the building blocks of water.

I then asked them to figure out a way to change the density of the water to get more of the items to float.  After some pretty creative ideas, I asked if anyone had heard of the Dead Sea.  At least one person in each class had and could tell something about the salt content.  After mapping the Dead Sea on our world map (where we map everything), the students began adding salt to their buckets of water to try to change the density of the water.

After about a cup and a half of salt, the hard boiled egg floated, followed by the raw egg.  Even with an entire container (about 3 cups) of salt, the eraser and grape did not float.

This surprised students and proved their theory about weight being the determining factor to be wrong.

Students found salt (sodium) on the periodic table, and realized the atomic mass is larger than that of water.  This explained why more items floated in the salt water, and why salt water is MORE DENSE than water.

Ah, science.

Scientists Around the World

We finished our "Scientists Around the World" assignment.  As mentioned earlier, students had to find a current scientist who was still living.  I am TRYING to encourage them to become scientists, so I wanted them to see that many scientists are not what they think.  I don't know if this worked, because I got a lot of, "He's old," and, "She looks funny," so my goal might have been far-fetched.  Anyway, they learned about many different types of scientists and what they do!  Also, I have a student whose parents are scientists (which I did not know), which is WAY cool!  Here is our working board, which as you can see is a little United States heavy.  We are working on that...And one student contributed a dollar from Trinidad, which I had to map.  If nothing else, we worked on some geography, which is always great!

Atoms and Molecules!

We have been learning about atoms, elements, and molecules, which involves many fun labs and activities, as well as fun assignments!  The latest assignment I gave the kids involves lots of choices.  I like choices myself, and with the Common Core and Essential Standards, students are supposed to be given more choices and responsibility for their own learning.  In this assignment, students were allowed to choose a song, rap, movie, skit, book, story, game, or worksheet that they would create.  They had to TEACH the following vocabulary:  elements, atoms, molecules, solid, liquid, gas (all three according to the movement of molecules), and matter.  Students could work together, but they had to produce their OWN individual work.  I originally gave them a day in class and a week at home (including a weekend, so movie-makers could collaborate at a house together to act and film), but I am majorly opposed (in fact, it makes me nauseous) to homework that is not necessary, so I ended up giving two days in class with a full week at home.  Here is some of the work in progress:

Some students made a board game...

And another made a game with cards.

Here is a story a student wrote...

and here is a Scientific War game another student created.

And just for something extra, we sang this song my awesome coworker shared with me.  The students get extra credit if their parents write a note saying they sang this song to them!  (The song is to the tune of "The Adams Family".  We sang this together.  They LOVED it!  Thanks, Jackie!)