Jenna- Elementary Science Methods Blog

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab we discussed the following questions: How do the phases of the moon occur? Initial thought: occur due to the position of the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Part of the moon is dark because it is covered by Earth's shadow. What we learned: The moon we see is the side that is light up by the sun. What causes the seasons? Initial thought: When the Earth is further from the sun, it is Winter, when the Earth is closer to the sun, it is Summer. What we learned: The Earth is titled and sometimes the northern hemisphere is titled towards the Sun and sometimes the southern hemisphere is titled away from the sun. What causes a lunar eclipse? Initial thought: when the moon falls into Earth's shadow What we learned: The Earth, Moon and Sun all align so the shadow of the Earth covers the moon from the sun. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture we learned about the moon phases and the Sun....

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. The big question we address in lab was How can we design a safe and durable playground surface? We created our own surface and tested it with dropping and egg. We successfully created as surface with sand and hay to save our kid (egg) from a one meter fall. This was tough because the bowl was small so we had trials where the kid bounced out of the bowl. We had to refine our design to have less material inside to save our kid. We were unable to save our kid from a two meter drop and we ran out of kids to try again. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture this week, we took an exam over the past 5 weeks of physics . Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? There was no textbook reading this week. What was most helpful? What do you need more information on? What questions/concerns/comments do you have?

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. To begin in math class, we finished up our discussion about friction and slides. After our discussion about slides, we moved on to the big question addressed in lab: What affects how long it takes a swing to go back and forth? My group focused on how the weight of the rider would affect the speed of the swing going back and forth. We found that the weight doesn't matter and the speed of the rider stays pretty close to the same despite the weight difference. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we went into detail about Newton's first and second law along with discussing energy in detail. We discussed how those concepts relate to swings and what can change the speed of the swing.   Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned what potential and kinetic energy is and how it affects a pendulum swing As a pendulum swings upward, it is po...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. What affects a riders speed down a slide?  In lab, we modeled this by testing different variables. My group tested how hight of a slide would affect riders speed down the slide. We found that with any type of material, the rider is going at a faster speed when the height of the slide is higher. For example, when the wooden stick traveled 1 meter, it was going at a speed of 1.82 m/s. When the wooden stick traveled 2 meters, it was going at a speed of 2.56 m/s. That pattern continued with 2 other types of materials showing that the taller the height, the faster the speed of the rider. In other words, the taller the slide, the faster the child will go. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture In lecture, we discussed what we learned in lab and learned more of the reasoning of why those moments happen.  We discussed that the higher the slide, the faster the speed of the rider because riders...

The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. The big question that we focused on in lab was: How can we ensure that a race is exciting? In lab, we decided to model a race that the two people who are different speeds will finish at the same time. We modeled a 5 meter race and did a test run to see the speeds of the two races. One racer walked at 1 mps faster than the other, so the slower racer got a 1 meter head start for the race. During the model, the two racers finished at the same time. A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In lecture, we practiced measuring speed and distance to have two people finish the race at the same time. We discussed that speed= distance/time. We also discussed that there are 2 ways to give someone a lead in a race, they could either get a time or a distance head start. We practiced some problems using that as well. Answer questions about the weekly textbook reading: What did you learn? I learned that accelerat...

Questions  The questions that we worked on investigating this week are:  How can a particle model help to explain  - Why the plunger is hard to pull up when suctioned? - Why does ice melt faster on metal than on wood? - Why do cold drinks get water droplets on the outside?   Plunger Experiment  Today we spent part of lab investigating why the plunger is hard to pull up when it is suctioned to the table. The reason is that there is 14.7 psi pushing down on the plunger at all times. When the plunger is not suctioned, there is 14.7 psi also pushing up inside the plunger so it cancels each other out. When the plunger is suctioned, there is still 14.7 psi pushing down on the plunger, but now there is less than 14.7 psi pushing up inside the plunger, which is why it is hard to pull it up, you would need enough force to cancel out 14.7psi. Model we created to explain this Condensation on Can Experiment Water particles in the air are a higher temperature than ...

 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.