I blog around once a month to let parents and other members of our community know what we’ve been up to lately in the Lab. To hear about the latest blog posts, you can follow me on twitter.
This year, I’m starting the year with Kindergarten students with a visit to our school garden, where we use our senses to observe plants and animals like pillbugs. Students in 1st through 6th grade started with an activity to test how well they wash their hands, using a special glow-under-UV light lotion called Glo Germ (no actual germs involved.) Then the students needed to solve some puzzles to find the answer to a mystery. They needed to work together, be observant, decipher some secret messages, and unlock a locked box. If that sounds like an escape room to you, that’s no coincidence; I’m a big fan of escape rooms, and modeled this activity on them.
Some students asked me where their families can get the materials we used in our activities. You can find the glowing lotion and UV light by doing a Google search for “Glo Germ Kit.” And if you do a search for “square bug box,” you’ll find the ones we used. They look like this: