Experiments
The Hammer Brings the Heat - Students can feel the difference between two nails. Friction makes the difference.
Static Electricity Trials to Get the Best Charge - This trial compares the static that can be generated by wool to that of cotton.
The Static Electricity Fun Dampening Experiment - Students see how moisture can take all the fun out of static.
The format
This is a collection of experiments that prove the experimental method is more than a chart on the wall. You won’t need to go to the copier.
In each of these experiments, students need a journal. Case A is the control and it’s chosen by what seems closest to normal. Otherwise just pick one and make it case A. Case B has just one single difference being the experimental variable.
When presenting the cases, ask students if it matters which one gets marked A or B. It shouldn’t matter because we can only draw conclusions if both start out the same in every important way. Before you mark them A or B, the students must agree that both cases seem exactly alike.
After the result of the activity, students take turns to talk about what they saw, heard, felt, thought of, or learned from seeing it. Guide this discussion to what we learned. Ask students to tell what we did and what we learned verbally. The teacher takes notes and copies a few good sentences that students say. The teacher asks what should be written in the journals. Students verbally tell sentences that describe what we did and what we learned. Write down two or three complete sentences by modeling and students write about this in their journals. After a student finishes, they should read their writing to three other students.
Why?
There would be no science without the math to measure it or without the language to describe it. Teaching math and science makes sense when combined with teaching literacy. When we bring objects from the garage, closet or kitchen to teach math or science there is plenty the children want to say. We turn that discussion into writing by thinking about what we know. We read back what we wrote, and we keep a record. Bringing the outside adult world to the classroom makes learning ambitious.
