Static Electricity Experiment

For our energy science unit we got a Tubberware full of various items. The only thing is there is no instructions to go with the items, so we are left to make sense of all the items ourselves. Two items made sense to me: balloons and a glove. Static Electricity!!! In October, I had done a fun science experiment with my five year old that made ghostly coffee filters dance with a charged balloon. I had to make a manipulated variable to make it a true experiment so I had students try to charge the balloon with three different things: their hair, a glove, and a paper towel. Then I had students measure the distance from the balloon to the coffee filters from when the filters started to float up.

The experiment write-up in their science journals

You can't do static electricity without the classic hair pics ;o)

Types of Energy

In 5th grade the standard is that students need to know about the five major types of energy: kinetic, heat (thermal), sound, light, and electricity. Mrs. Judd had introduced the different types of energy during her systems unit at the beginning of the year. I wanted to have students a dig a little different. We read from this great book from Delta Science. I love how on each page the book highlights different types of reading strategies and questions that help them think about what they have learned. I hope I can find more in this series.

After we did some reading, each table group teams was assigned a different type of energy. The groups each made a poster and then it was their job to teach the rest of the class everything they learned about their energy. Just look how their posters turned out:

The Parallelograms had light energy-love their lightbulb that they named Edison

The Trapezoid's poster was on sound energy. We also played with a tuning fork!

The Isosceles learned and taught about thermal energy. Great fire!!!

The Rhombus group did both kinetic & potential energy. Loved using a full bus to demonstrate more kinetic energy because it has more mass!

The Equalateral's had electricity. They represented both current and static electricity.

Local Landform Models

Now that I finally got my camera and laptop together in one place and WORKING I can finally post some of what we have worked on in the last week. First and foremost I want to post my newest student blogger, J.Z. She has been my biggest support of the classroom blog and I was excited she decided to write about the Local Landform homework I assigned. Students were to make a 3D model of any landform in Oregon or Washington State (since we live on the border). With the model students needed to write an index card with the name of the landform, where it was located, what type of landform, and two facts about it. When the landforms finally came in I was BLOWN away! It was my proud teacher moment of the year!!! Let's see what J.Z. has to say about the assignment:

We've been learning about forces of nature and our homework was to make a model of a landform. Our teacher had told us the legend of Crater lake and I really enjoyed this study!!! I love doing projects like this. I think it helps me understand more not by being told but actually making me write something to explain what I've learned.

J.Z.'s Crater Lake model

Multnomah Falls in Oregon

Mt. Hood

The Sea Lion Caves in Oregon

Mt. Hood

Columbia River Gorge

The Mima Mounds in Washington

Mt. St. Helens

Crater Lake

The Ape Caves in Washington

I so with I could include every students pictures. They were all so truly amazing and they put so much time and effort in to it! I hope the families had fun doing this activity together and learning about their local landforms!

Topography

You can't do a landform study without examining some topography maps. Most of my kiddos have never seen a topography map before. I broke them into groups and they had to come up with some observations and questions about the topography map of Mt. Shasta. Many students thought that the lines were earthquakes (natural disasters on the mind). After we shared our ideas, I made a foam mountain. Then I traced around each shape one on top of each other. It didn't take long for students to put two-and-two together. Next the students had a hand at making a topography map of Mt. Shasta, standing at 38,000 ft.

Landform Cycle & Chant

As we begin wrapping up the landform unit I finally completed the pictorial diagram. I would only color and label parts of the landform cycle as I taught it. I like how it finally turned out and hopefully it has been a resource for the students.

Other things we have been working on throughout the entire unit is our GLAD big book and the chant/song. My host teacher is a master at writing learning songs to different tunes. When you write and teach a chant you should have the students come up with gestures for key vocabulary words. The songs help students recall information and they are engaging. Here is the song on an anchor chart and my class performing it!

Stream Tables

Student Blogger, H.C., decided to write about what we have been experimenting with in our Landforms unit. Our FOSS kits came late, but they have been so much fun! Her post explains the set-up perfectly. At the end of her post I will go into greater detail of the three different experiments the class did over the last two weeks. Here is H.C.:

What I wanted to talk about is the stream tables we have been doing in class. We have been different types of experiments. One was flooding! What you do is put a big tub on a desk. Then you get a smaller tub and you put it on the ground or a chair. You put amount of sand (and clay) in the big tub. You need a ruler and a cup with a hole in the bottom. You place the ruler side ways so the end of the rulers touch each side of the tub. Then you place the cup on the ruler You will fill the cup with water and wait until it comes through the sand. Before you do this you write a prediction. You are done after a second cup of water. Then you write a conclusion.

Here is a picture demonstrating the set-up H.C. described

H.C. did a great job describing the set up of the stream tables. The first cup is meant to represent standard rain fall. When you fill the cup with water over the earth material (shaped like a plateau) you can witness what would happen to the earth with erosion in thousands of years in only two minutes. Students write and sketch observations of their stream table as two water cups flow over their earth material. I walked around and tried to point out canyons, caves, floodplains, meandering rivers, deltas and more. Our 2nd experiment has a larger hole in the cup that represents a flooding environment. The 3rd experiment is not part of the FOSS kit investigations. My host teacher wondered if we put popsicle sticks (as a way to create a tree type environment) if it would  lessen or slow down erosion. As I walked around I noticed that the "trees" did change the impact of the erosion. The students had a hard time seeing the difference because in both the material did eventually have a landslide (which would happen in reality as well). I  had students create a Venn Diagram to compare the standard rain fall experiment with no trees and the experiment with trees to highlight some of the similarities and differences. This has been a fabulous way for students to witness landforms forming in a very quick and relevant way. I am sorry to see the FOSS kits leave.

Weathering

We have been plugging away with our large landform unit. As we wait for the Foss Kits to show up I have been busy teaching weathering. As we move away from weathering onto erosion I wanted to show what we have done so far. Here is what we have done in science in the past two weeks (not including the GLAD component which I will make a separate post on later):


Weathering Experiment: I took some different rocks from my yard (pebbles and decorative rocks bought at Home Depot) and placed them in a glass baby food jar. Then I had the students fill the jars with water and shake at 15 second intervals. Over time the decorative rock broke away and what looked like sand sediment appeared. We were able to weather our own rocks!

The murky water is actually weathered sediment

A student's experiment write up

Sand Observation: My son has a sand collection from different beaches around the world. We have sand from Japan, Thailand, Honduras, Mexico, Caribbean, and local beaches as well. You would be amazed how all sand looks different! In pairs students got two samples to compare. Then I had students infer why the two samples would look so differently. They had more difficulty with this than I expected. However, after some discussion we realized that different rocks could be one reason for the difference in appearance, and also the how long they had been weathered may also be a factor.

Looking at differences

Sand Samples

Students comparison notes and inferences

Chemical/Physical Weathering Picture Sort: After watching my PowerPoint on the different types of both physical and chemical weathering, that highlight some characteristics to watch for, we inferred from pictures what type of weathering each image was.  For example, honeycomb appearance tells us salt-wedging has occurred. It was fun to guess which type of weathering each image was. To take it a step further, if a student could tell me the EXACT name of weathering that was happening they got a Super Scientist award (more on that in another post).

Digging through Dirt

As we began our landform science unit we took a closer look at soil. Soil can be surprisingly fascinating! We spent some time discussing everything that is soil with the help of my super-duper soil anchor chart.

Key points I wanted students to focus on ( soil layers and types of weathered rocks by particle sizes)

Last Thursday I brought in soil samples from my yard and some awesome 5th grade scientist did the same. I had the students look at the soil up close and personal with magnifying glasses and microscopes. They recorded the smell, feel, images, and organic materials. I had them also pull out rocks (anything over 2mm-which they measured). I so wish I had pictures of them  playing the dirt! They really got into it. When they found worms and dead bugs (humus) things got very exciting.

 An excellent read aloud is Jump Into Science:Dirt. By first glance you may think it would be too babyish for 5th graders, but the content is fabulous! I swear it is written to teach all the state science standards. The children were engaged and it was very relevant to what we are learning. It is a must own if you have to teach soil to your students.

We then took our soil and put them in glass jars (filling them up half way). We add water and shook! After 2 mins layers started appearing. By examining the jars of the last couple of days we were able to label the different layers (sand, silt, clay) and see organic material floating on the top. I loved how the experiments tied in so nice to our lecture that first day! After final observations we could give evidence if our soil was good for growing plants or not.

I just love the worm bobbing in the water pic ;0)