Dec. 5

As promised, here are the results of our experiment!

If you remember, we made a hypothesis about how many drops we could fit on the surface of a penny. Most of us guessed anywhere 3 - 10.  But... we actually got between 16 and 34!  The students were amazed that so many drops could fit on such a small surface. Below shows a bit of the process of our experiment today:

We started by dropping water drop by drop:

  

As we did this, we took a tally of how many drops we added:

 We kept going until the tension became too much for the water.  We learned that depending how forceful we were could change our end result:

 

When we finished we made some observations and recorded what we learned:

 We have really been focusing on understanding the scientific vocabulary. We will continue to review these words through out the unit to ensure that students have a sold understanding of them.  This is a fun activity to try at home.  You could try with different coins to practice estimating as well :)

Coming up:

• book exchange tomorrow

Dec. 1

We had an great day filled with a variety of different activities. We did everything from email to creative movement.  The best part for many of the kids was making an hypothesis and learning this new word.  The students felt so proud to be able to say this scientific word.   We will be regularly using this vocabulary with our science throughout the year.

We also started to learn about another scientific word: surface tension. We started to guess what this word means and through our experiment on Monday we will have a better understanding it.

We began an experiment to see how many drops of water would fit on a penny.  We made a hypothesis as to the number of drops that could fit and why we thought that many could fit.  On Monday we will  test our hypothesis, draw our observations, and record our results.  We will update you on our results.

How many drops do you think will fit?

Coming Up:
Ken Taylor Market tomorrow from 10-3