Many of you have asked me to post my Jelly Belly Key that demonstrates dichotomous keys in a fantastic fashion. Sometimes when you purchase jelly bellies there are new ones that are not on the key. You have a choice to modify the key yourself or do it with the children on a SMART board if possible. Enjoy this because your students will.

Dr. J

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/05/13/obrien.degrasse.tyson.jobs.cnn

According to a research team in Northern Illinois University, girls in high school are enjoying science less than their counter parts in science. Why? This study is just preliminary and more results will be released later. The data indicates that females are bored in science class more often than the males. Well the study does not indicate why but my guess is partly due to society telling them for years, perhaps even decades, that science and mathematics is a boys’ subject.

I believe we must dispel this myth early in science. I am trying to do this with my program called Girls Leading Girls in Science. I am working with 5^th grade girls from a Title 1 school alongside with female STEM majors from Belmont Abbey College. Not only have we begun our mentoring program we are launching a research project with the entire 5^th grade class in January, 2010. Stay tuned as we present the research project and see the impact.

What allows something to sink or float?  An object will sink if it is heavier than water, right?  Let’s explore that concept a bit more.   Explain how a heavy steel ship floats in the ocean.  Surely it is heavier than water.  Well perhaps there is something else happening.  Did you ever notice that when something floats in water, part of it is actually under water? As it sinks (even a little bit) it pushes away the water until that amount of water weighs the same as the object that is floating. If the object you are trying to float is too heavy, it cannot push away enough water to be the same as how much it weighs. If that happens, the object will sink.

But wait; there is more to this concept of sink or float. Density is another important concept associated with sink or float.  This property called density, which is the mass of an object divided by its volume D = M/V, effects sinking and floating.  Here is how it works.  Take an empty water bottle.  Will it sink or float?  Yes of course it will float because its mass is less than the water.  Now take the same water bottle and fill it with sand.  Will it sink or float?  Yes of course it will sink because its mass is more than water.  Let’s explore the concept of density a bit more.  Things that have a lower density than water will float in water. This is because the item weighs less than the water that it displaces.

Hold on there is another factor that influences sink or float that we need to explore.  I am sure you have heard of buoyancy as it relates to the concept of sink or float.  Try this experiment.  Take a piece of aluminum foil and making a water-tight boat out of it. If you carefully put the boat in a dish or pan of water, you will see that it floats.  Now take the aluminum foil boat and crumple it up into a ball and put it back on the water. It sinks! There is the same amount of aluminum foil in both cases, but in the case of the boat, you shaped it so that it displaced a lot of water compared to the amount of water that is displaced when you crumpled the aluminum foil into a ball.

Here is a great youtube book reading of Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsYb1YSYR34

What a wonderful way to spend a summer afternoon ……… launching rockets!

I am doing my favorite summer activity, exploring science with elementary teachers.  This week we will explore many science content areas and how to best teach them.  One of the participating teachers is a great believer of SCIENCE NOTEBOOKS. She has agreed to share her ideas with notebooks.

Mrs. Jill Thompson is a master 5th grade teacher, Camp Invention Director and a Science Olympiad Coach.

After notebooking for several years she has come up with the following ideas for organizing the notebook, grading rubrics, how to work cooperatively, and some lessons that demonstrate to students how to use a science notebook.

We discussed today that science notebooks should be shared and evaluated by peers as well as the teacher.  I believe it promotes critical thinking for everyone engaged in science notebooks.

Enjoy the assistance from Jill Thompson – thanks for your help!

Launch Science Notebooks Week 1

Launch Science Notebooks Week 2

Rubric for Science Notebooks

Science Notebook Must Haves

Station Directions on How to Use Science Notebooks

How to Interact in Science Groups

While you are away this summer sipping an adult cool frozen beverage on the beach or hiking the mountains you can be preparing for next years science lessons….

Easy things to do for next year’s science class while you are on vacation:

1.  Collect a small amount of sand from the beach(es) you visit so you can compare the sand under lens.  Perhaps ask your friends to by handing out labeled Ziploc baggies.

2.  Collect different shells from the beach.  This is an awesome activity for younger students – grouping the shells and explaining why they did it.  With older students you can have them classify them and then show them a dichotomous** key and they can identify them.

2.  Same idea but with rocks from the mountains.  ***Be aware of the rules and regulations in state and national parks about removing rocks/soil/plants.

3.  Pictures of landforms wherever you go.  You can create an awesome PowerPoint presentation with pictures and your students can classify them. Or  I have created pictures from my color printer, laminated them and asked students to identify the landform on the back with a Vis-a-vi marker.

4.  Same idea as above but with weather events using pictures.  I don’t know where you live but there have been some very interesting weather events in the southeastern United States.

5.  If you are a gardener, take pictures of the growth of your vegetables and your younger students can put them in chronological order.  You can also save some of the seeds and grow them in your classroom in early spring.

** Dichotomous keys are available at your local library to identify your shells

Please post your ideas here….

Picture of the New Food Plate

Let’s Make Change Through Science Lessons in the Classroom

One of my master’s students did an action research this semester where her students changed their eating habits through a science unit.  It was a wonderful change to see among her all female 4^th grade class.

Ms. Martin had noticed that her students were bringing in sugary, fat filled snacks as well as making poor choices in the lunch line.  So she decided it was time to help her students discover that their food choices were not healthy.  She observed and took notes on her students eating habits during lunch for about one week.  Most of their food choices were sugar, salty and fat filled foods with few vegetables and fruits.  She then presented a unit on healthy living that included lessons on healthy eating and the way it makes you feel.  Healthy food gives you more energy and you feel better.

She asked her students to keep a food diary and how it made them feel.  I think this activity engages students and allows them to feel good about food choices they are making.  Perhaps you could expand the unit and grow some of your own food to eat.

Please share some of your ideas for food chemistry units and healthy living here.