Group items tagged

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL is filled with many hands on activities for all kinds of science. Why does a tornado spin? Why does a wave break? Why does a flame burn? Why does lightning strike? Our questions about the world begin almost as soon as we're aware of it. I have been to this museum but it has been a long time. After trying to think of an interesting place to go and looking at several, this museum seems to be filled with many hands on science experiences and that is why I chose this museum. Also, for field trips, chaperons and students get into the museum for free but there are small fees for the omnimax and certain special exhibits. I also loved that there were labs you could rent, online resources, and they also include worksheets for activities they do in the museum. For the labs they also include standards on their website, including the next generation standards! Many exhibits interest me but this one on Science Storms would be great to take your students after doing a lesson on weather in science. This would give students an insight to mother nature, it's strength in an up close view. There are so many more to include though. So you could even do an end of the year field trip, or maybe an 8th grade trip and include an educational engaging experience for the children.

This activity helps provide students with a simple understanding of why there are different types of soil. The students will be given a chewy chocolate chip cookie, and a regular crunchy one. They will examine each cookie and describe their characteristics and properties. Next, the students will smash the cookies with their hands to replicate the process of rocks weathering. Now that they have soil, they will compare the properties of both types of soil and form conclusions. Using a chewy chocolate chip cookie and a crunchy one represents the different minerals found in soils, and how it impacts its appearance, texture, and many other characteristics. Once the students have completed this activity, they will be able to enjoy a cookie! I selected this resource because I think it is a very straight forward way of learning about the different types of soils. Using these types of cookies really makes the concept easier to understand. This activity will not cost a lot of money, which makes it very valuable to me. We will do this activity at the end of our soil lesson in science.

This site is an interactive lab teaching about volcanoes. The students need to have a variety of outlets for learning. This is a all computer based lesson to give them a new way to learn instead of just listening to me. I would instruct them at first, but then I would let them explore this lab.

This tool is a great supplement to a lesson. It gives a visual as to how an enzyme reacts in the cell as well as allows students to modify parameters to understand the effects of the change in environment. This can be used as review and accessed at home as well.

In this game, students are separated into teams. Each team is given a block of Legos. Students must then take turns crab-walking from one side of the room to the other. Once the student reaches the other side, they are to break off one Lego from their block, set it on the floor, then pass the remaining piece to the next classmate in line. This game is a fun and easy way of explaining the process of the weathering away of a rock through the effects of erosion and deposition. I chose this resource because I thought it was a great way for students to become actively involved in the process of erosion, while allowing them to be active and work with their classmates. I would use this game in my classroom as a conclusion to a lesson on weathering, erosion, and deposition.

This hands-on activity allows students to get a better understanding of why a tree's leaves change colors. By doing this activity, we will be able to see how a leaves colors stay hidden in the leaf all year long. Students will collect leaves prior to doing this experiment, and will place them in small jars filled slightly with rubbing alcohol. Those leaves will be chopped up into tiny pieces and left in the jar which will be covered with a lid or plastic wrap. The jars will soak in water for about a half an hour. Students will then use a strip of coffee filter paper to see the colors from the leaves bleed. They will see different shades of green, orange, red, and maybe some yellow depending on the type of leaf. I chose this experiment because it allows the students to understand chromatography, chlorophyll, and different pigments found in leaves. By doing a hands-on activity, students are more engaged and anxious to find out what is going to happen. I envision this experiment being used at the end of a plant lesson in science. We would have been discussing different types of plants, trees, flowers, and why they are all different colors. There will also be many important vocabulary words that the students will need to understand, which will be present in this activity. We will conduct this experiment in small groups so that students are able to participate and see what is going on.

10 years ago, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. Why does it seem like storms are only getting worse since then? This video provides students with a realistic hurricane that occurred in the united states and gives facts about how hurricanes are made as well as what they cause. I love the information on the characteristics of how hurricanes develop and what they do when they hit land.I believe that students can most of their information on hurricanes from this video and because it ties in a real life event, student can relate to this subject matter even more.

In this 3rd through 5th grade video, students use their science knowledge and apply it using physical activity! Learning about the stages of matter, solid, liquid and gas, students perform an exercise for each as the teacher calls out an object such as soup or fog. _________ This link states the activity is good for third through fifth grade, but I think second grade may also benefit. Through a physical activity, students explore different states of matter. I believe movement and exercise is necessary for students throughout the day. This is a great way for students to get up and move around once you realize they are starting to become antsy or even if there are a few extra minutes of down time. Instead of jogging in place or stretching with no instruction information, have your students do certain movements when you call out the cue for an object that could be a solid, liquid, or gas. This idea could even be a good starting points for other lessons such as vocab words. The teacher could say a definition and students could act it out.

InnerBody.com is a free virtual human anatomy website with detailed models of all human body systems. The Internet's best anatomy learning resource! This resource lets student interact with the human body in the different sunbject matter such as, muscular system, skeletal system, circulatory system and many more areas within the human body. This activity allows students to click on certain areas with the human body and the website increases that part of the human body in order to let the students explore and learn. I believe that this activity can help students study for their assessment as well as assist them within their memorization skills.

Because observation, prediction, and communication are all very important science skills, this project works perfectly to help students improve in all of those areas! As a teacher, I would use this activity to tie in with telling time and with our Solar System unit. This project would ideally be used in a third grade class and be a good hands on project. I thought that it would be fun to keep a classroom sun dial outside so we could keep a chart about how accurate it worked or even use it as some kind of experiment. I think it's a very unique lesson and project. It's something that you wouldn't see every day in a Science class with that age group.

Remove "science" tag and add something more specific, like "earth science." To keep words together, use " " around the word. For example, remove the tags "sun" and "dial" and add one that is "sun dial". Grade level tags should be k-2, 3-5, 6-8, and/or 9-12 to be consistent among all the resources.

This activity is a little lengthy, but I would definitely use it with older elementary students. Students will build their own models of either a plant or animal cell by using Jell-O and fruit (or candy). If I were to use this in class I would modify the activity in a few ways. Making it a two day activity would allow for the students to pour their own molds, which would be kept in the refrigerator over night. Then students can label and stick the fruit into the finished mold on the next day. Either way, this activity is a great way to help students retain the different parts of a cell.

In this activity students will roll a toy car down a ramp and measure how long the car it takes to go down the ramp. This activity emphasizes gravity, friction, and velocity. The students will measure how long their car goes down the ramp and then have the cars roll down on sandpaper. They will see how friction has an effect on objects. I like that this activity is hands on and engaging. I would use this after an introduction to gravity and friction. After the initial test, I would allow the students to change the height of the ramp to see how this affects the velocity of the cars.

In this set of activities adaptable for grades K-2, parents and educators will find ideas for teaching about pushes and pulls. Of these activities, my favorite and one I could see myself using in my future classroom is the Push Pull Hunt. The teacher needs to have multiple objects in the classroom that need to be pushed or pulled or both. The teacher then breaks the students down into groups and gives them a sheet of paper containing objects they need to find on their scavenger hunt. The students then describe where they found the object and if it needs to be pushed, pulled, or both. For example, the students would need to find a door that could be pushed open. I chose this activity because I thought it would be a fun way for students to apply what they have been learning in class. I would use this activity for the day after learning about pulls and pushes. Right before the activity we would review what a push and a pull is and then I would break the students into groups to begin the scavenger hunt.

Look at plants & what is needed for photosynthesis. What is the chemical reaction & what does it look like? Where does it all occur within the leaf? I could see myself using this interactive learning video for a lesson in photosynthesis. The video reads out loud to students, giving them important information about photosynthesis and then stops periodically to let them drag items, match terms, etc. I would let students explore using this tool, and then bring everyone together for a whole class discussion on what they learned. This could accompany a larger unit on plants, in which we could grow plants from seeds in a windowsill.

This site had a great diagram that showed how the earth is tilted and where it is located according to the sun during each season. I would use this site as a resource during my lessons. This could also be used as a center for the students because it had a season quiz and season themed sheets.

This lesson is used to teach young students the importance of nature. Many students don't realize many manufactured items come from nature. Bring in everyday items from home and ask the children where they think the item came from (paper and books from trees, glass from sand, etc). Have different colored dots and walk around the classroom and label items with colors from what the item might have came from (green=trees, red=animals), this requires the students to think critically. It's important for children to respect nature and understand most everything we interact with on a daily basis is from nature. As a teacher I can use this to teach children respect of nature and each other because everything must work together.

I found this field trip idea from a mom who homeschool's her children and like to take them out and about to explore and learn. She was giving this as an idea for other homeschool moms, but I think that it would be awesome to do even with classroom students. The students would learn all about how science is everywhere! Especially relating to trees and how some of my kids may not realize that we get syrup from them! It may or may not just blow their minds! We would study up on it in the classroom but then we would take a field trip to go see how the sap is collected from the tree and turned into syrup. I would use this in a third, fourth, or fifth grade classroom. I would love to take a field trip to expose my students to the visuals and hands on experience. I just think this is something that is outside of the box and not a typical science lesson or trip. I think it could really help encourage some of my students who aren't fans of science. It will just be a way to spark their interest and help them have fun with science.

This resource is a web page that has an entire outline and all of the information to do a field trip at Glacier National Park in Montana. This field trip is designed for 2nd grade (in the fall or spring) and has a duration of 4 hours. The group size listed is for 45 students. This is an excellent field trip that allows students to observe plants and animals in their natural habitats, compare/contrast, and communicate findings. I felt that this field trip would match perfectly with 2-LS4-1. I would use this field trip near the end of my unit, so students could grasp the real life connections and I could somewhat assess their learning of the lessons previously taught for this specific standard. ( I did not see the cost for this field trip listed on the website, so I am led to believe it is a free field trip that Glacier National Park offers.)

This is the website that students and teachers can both visit to see what the planetarium have and what is expected of the students to learn there. I think visiting the Saint Louis science center would be a fun learning experience for the students, even if they have already visited the center. As a teacher I would go here after my students have learned about planet, solar system, the history of astronomy, etc... It was help students connect all of their previous knowledge to a real life experience which makes it even more fun because it's relevant to them (students). The website/Science Center is also useful to students for other subject areas or interest they might have.

This is the St. Louis Zoo's website. It contains all the events it holds along with information about some of the animals. I chose this website as a source for a field trip. It is a good place to take students to because it is fun, but they are also learning about animals. I would take my students to the zoo after the lesson on food chains. They would have knowledge about what animals eat in terms of other animals. I would have them create their own food chains on the animals they saw at the zoo.

This is a resource for a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo. I selected this resource because it fit right in to my standard, 2-LS4-1 because the students will be able to make observations about the plants and animals that they see at the zoo as well as make observations about the types of habitats that the animals are in. I would use this resource to take my students on a field trip to the zoo to show them all of the different types of animals and most of the different types of plants.