Jenna- Elementary Science Methods Blog

 This week, the questions we focused on were: what is the fundamentals of matter? Do colors spread the same? To analyze those questions we focused on the m&m experiment from a couple of weeks ago. We did some additional expierements to see the speed at which the m&ms color spread. Although adding in more water didn't impact the speed at all, other metrics did. Adding in sugar to the water made the spread of color slow down. Adding in hotter water made the spread speed up. The reason that sugar caused it to slow down was because there were more molecules in the water that the m&m sugar could hit before spreading out. Hot water sped up the speed of it spreading because the molecules are moving quicker. Overall this lab helped me understand more about molecules and how they spread. I am still wondering how to explain what a molecule is to an elementary student.

This week we learned more about matter and focused on the question of: what is matter? What are differences between objects and how can we measure them? To focus on those questions we made a table of many different objects and then found out characteristics and variables of the objects. At the end of class, we learned about density. Density is mass/volume. A less dense object will float and a more dense object will sink when placed in water. It connected to the coke float we did last week. The reason the diet coke floated and the regular coke sunk even though they have the same volume is because the coke has lots of sugar which increases the mass. Table we created comparing different matter One thing I am still wondering is if you break a paper over and over infinite amount of times, will it always be paper?  

 This week, we focus on going through stations as an introduction to chemistry. The question that we focused on was: what is matter? How do we support elementary students in learning about matter and its interactions?  In lab, we transitioned through 6 stations that had a phenomenon and we needed to try and find an explanation for it. I attached some images from the stations that I found most interesting. All of them can be implemented in an elementary classroom as an introduction to a unit. This was used as an introduction to the next five weeks and we will be able to explain the phenomenon in the next couple of weeks. I am still wondering a lot of information about the stations like, why did the colors of the m&ms not mix, why did coke not float and diet coke did, and why did the metal pans met the ice quicker than the cutting board? I am also wondering how to control students during experiments like this and ensure they are gaining learning while also having fun with th...