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...

 The focus questions for today's lab was: - What makes something living? -How do plants get their food? -Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go? -What makes a good lesson plan according to the NGSS? To investigate those questions we focused on reviewing our past materials. To review, we created tri-folds and used resources and our past knowledge to work to answer the above questions. Another fun activity we did in class was investigating 3 cubes and trying to figure out the 6th side without picking it up or moving it. This was an activity that focused on patterns and you had to make a claim and use evidence to try and reason with what the 6th side would be. It was a good example of something we could do in a classroom to keep students interested. Overall, I believe I learned a lot during Biology and am excited to apply it in the classroom.

 This week, the questions that we were focused on were: Why do organisms have so many similarities and yet so many differences? What makes a bird a bird?  To investigate those questions, we created a model of natural selection. We used beans and had a predator prey on the beans. We used a spoon as a bird beak and the environment was water. We had two different types of beans, one that floats and one that didn't float. In the model, the beans that didn't float were more likely to survive and were able to reproduce more than the ones that floated. We changed the model and used tweezers as the beak. That changed the simulation to make the beans that floated more likely to  float. The model was a good representation of natural selection because there were two different traits, and one was more likely to survive and then more likely to reproduce children with the same traits. We also watched a video about the ancestors of birds. It turns out that birds are actually a relative ...

This week, the driving questions were: Why do organisms have so many similarities, and yet so many differences? How do organisms get their traits? To investigate this, we we looked at rock pocket mice and why they seemed to change their color. We first looked at a series of pictures below and tried to put them in order of what  came first and what came next. After we put the pictures in order, we tried to come up with a reason for why there are more dark colored mice on the bottom pictures vs the top pictures. We then watched a video which explained that the dark color and that there was a complete change in the environment that the mice had to adapt to. The dark colored mice was a random adaptation, but natural selection caused the dark colored mice to have better odds of living, causing them to adapt to there being more dark colored mice. I am still wondering how the recessive gene of dark colored fur was able to be there before the rocks turned dark.

 The question we were focus don this week during lab was: Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go? To investigate this question, we focused on food chains and food webs and did a discussion and a simulation to demonstrate the energy moving through the food chain. During the simulation, we all were a part of the food chain, either a producer, primary consumer, or a secondary consumer. We used beans to represent the energy. The producer started out with 100 energy, but the producer had a lot of things that used up the energy and was only left with 10 energy left in the plant. When the primary consumer eats the plant, they only got 10 energy from it and had to spend a lot of the energy on movement and reproduction, and was only left with 1 energy. When the secondary consumers eat the primary consumer, they don't get enough energy to complete their tasks, so they need to eat multiple primary consumers to get enough energy. Because of that, there aren't very many seconda...