It's been a great but crazy year! I can not wait to see you again in the fall. This is my last post. But fear not! I've listed some of my favorite sites for finding activities for students. Remember, science is all around you!
And YES! I will continue to send the patches to Sunol Glen Students if you keep doing science experiments over the summer. I will reward you for completing ANY 10 or 20 science experiments, even if you did not find them on my blog. Just have your parent send me an email letting me know you're done - do not forget to include your address so I can send your patch. Have a GREAT Summer! Great Science Websites:
And don't forget this great resource:
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Ever notice how when you go to the mountains for vacation and you open your shampoo bottle - a bit squirts out at you? Or if you go from the mountains back home, your water bottle might be squished? That's air pressure in action. In the examples I gave, the change in air pressure was caused by changing elevation. In today's activity the change in air pressure will be caused by a change in temperature - so no road trips needed!
Do you pay attention to your shadow? Most people don't. Did you know your shadow changes throughout the day, year, and based on the weather (cloudy/sunny)? In today's activity you'll get to "follow" your shadow over the course of the day to see what happens. You should make a hypothesis (the fancy scientific word for "guess") about what you think will happen before you start this experiment. K/1 students - Since you've already done this, see if your siblings or parents can guess what happens and them show them the results!
Here's another activity that feels like magic but is actually science. Did you know you can make lightning in your mouth? Ok, so it's not actually lightning because it doesn't go between the sky and the ground in a huge burst of electricity - but it looks like it. You are creating light but you are using friction to do it. I learned about this activity in a tent at Girl Scout Camp but you can do it anywhere you can make it dark - a bathroom with no windows and a mirror is ideal.
Did you know that today is the 50th Anniversary of the first Earth Day? 50 years ago people decided we needed to celebrate our Earth, which provides everything we need to live, and which we can not live without. People have not been very good at treating the Earth well and Earth Day was created to remind us of the importance of doing so. Visit this site more information on Earth Day.
You may not know it, but water sources found out in nature (ponds, creeks, the ocean, etc.) have bacteria and other contaminants that would make you sick if you drank it. Where we live, we have public water systems that clean our water and pipe it to the sinks in our house where we drink it. In today's Earth Day inspired experiment, we are going to use the heat from the sun to purify water. In the lab we study currents at multiple grade levels. We learn about them as we study heat energy transfer. The key point I try to teach is that heat energy flows from warm to cool and that transfer of energy can create currents.
Convection currents are something we experience every day - as part of our weather, or, more close to home, in a pot on our stove. Warm water (or air) rises because it is less dense (the water molecules are farther apart) and cool water (or air) sinks because it is more dense (the water molecules are closer together). This experiment will allow students to easily see the currents which usually are not visible because you can't see temperature variations in a substance. |
You Can Continue to Earn the Patches over the SUmmer!
welcome!
Every school day I will post a new experiment for you to try at home. Some may be familiar to you - as they are my favorites from class - but most will be experiments I found on the web that have readily available materials. Happy Sciencing! Earn a Patch
Sunol Glen Students - Complete an additional 10 experiments (20 total) from this site and I will send you this patch: Parents - just email me when students have completed a challenge, no proof required. Categories |