In the lab last week, our 6th graders built balloon rockets to show how unbalanced forces lead to changes in motion. This year, we did something new with this activity: the students had to figure out how to design and build them. We did it this way because our 6th graders have new state standards this year in science, and one of the changes is that students do more planning their own experiments, and designing solutions to engineering problems. I was impressed at how well they did in building working balloon rockets, especially considering they have only 35 or 40 minutes. Kindergarten students are also studying motion, and built paper helicopters. First graders did more animal adaptation activities, second graders made different kinds of vibrations to make different sounds, third graders started learning about the motion of the earth in our solar system, fourth graders are continuing with animal classification, and fifth graders are studying the properties of matter and will soon be able to explain why some materials float. Next week we’ll do lots more experiments, and you can bet that there will be a video of a pregnant giraffe somewhere on my computer screen.
This past week I heard about the pregnant giraffe cam from one of my students, so naturally I had to go and check it out. There is a live feed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyQfWCX-bAg) of a giraffe in a zoo who is expected to give birth very soon. Watching animal cams is a fun way to get a close-up look at animals and learn more about them, whether they are in captivity or in the wild. Nest cams are interesting too, like the one at http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles . That pair of eagles is incubating three eggs right now. Some other eagle nests have already hatched their chicks. If you like animals, whether it’s owls, otters, jellyfish or pregnant giraffes, there’s an animal cam out there for you.
In the lab last week, our 6th graders built balloon rockets to show how unbalanced forces lead to changes in motion. This year, we did something new with this activity: the students had to figure out how to design and build them. We did it this way because our 6th graders have new state standards this year in science, and one of the changes is that students do more planning their own experiments, and designing solutions to engineering problems. I was impressed at how well they did in building working balloon rockets, especially considering they have only 35 or 40 minutes. Kindergarten students are also studying motion, and built paper helicopters. First graders did more animal adaptation activities, second graders made different kinds of vibrations to make different sounds, third graders started learning about the motion of the earth in our solar system, fourth graders are continuing with animal classification, and fifth graders are studying the properties of matter and will soon be able to explain why some materials float. Next week we’ll do lots more experiments, and you can bet that there will be a video of a pregnant giraffe somewhere on my computer screen.
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