Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Marcia, nice work on clearly connecting this science activity to the wider curriculum. You can also link the position of the Sun in the sky to the school’s orientation – ask the children which way their classroom faces by noting what time of day does the Sun shine in the window?
If you have to close the blinds in the morning – you face east. If at lunchtime, you face south, if in the afternoon, you face west. If the Sun never shines in the window – north.
Sean – a way a teacher once described this to me is to challenge the children to “fit” into their shadows even 15 minutes later.
This can be fun if the children make a funny pose to begin with!
Needs a good sunny day for it to work, nothing more disappointing than a partially cloudy day which means the shadows are in and out!
LOVE love love this story!
The rhymes are great:
“What is UV?”
Mum said it’s a harmful form of light
that’s called UV and is out of sight,
like lots of things that are in the air
that we can’t see but are still there.
The sun is hottest around midday
so find a shady place to play,
be extra careful between 11 and 3,
when the Sun produces strong UV.
Find some shade under a tree,
or go indoors for a while maybe.
A tip that’s really good to know
is to look down at your Shadow.
If your Shadow is shorter than you,
slip slap slap is what to do!Thanks for sharing the link to the read-along. If you did want to get the uv beads, Shaws Scientific have carried them. – they are now part of Vitta Education and the beads seem to be UK only.
Baker Ross has “Glow in the Dark Beads” which look to be the same thing.
Louise – that is the first time I have actually seen an episode of Peppa Pig!!
https://youtu.be/Zp9x8AJAU1M?si=c6sdzovyv714Y0uE
the astronomer in me is wincing, but it could be a nice discussion of facts that the show gets ‘right-ish’ – like the shape of stars (are they really 5 pointed?), could you see a shooting star through a telescope (field of view vs how fast a shooting star goes), would you point a telescope out of a window (nope – there would be too much air movement between the warm inside and the cold outside)….
Nice to do this topic in the winter months when it is dark before 6pm and young children can actually be awake!
“Tell me more” is just brilliant.
Inquiry in science is all about using the scientific method to enable deep learning of science by ‘doing’ science – and by using this phrase you are deliberately stepping back from being the “expert” with the answers, to be being a guide to help the children formulate science explanations and test them.
Great stuff.
Hi Laura,
I like how you have included “guess which material would keep a drink the warmest in advance of the experiment taking place and to justify their answer.”
Science happens when children explore their world with science eyes – and make predictions based on their understanding and check if those expectations come to pass. A pure guess doesn’t improve a child’s understanding, and if a child knows nothing about a topic, then guessing is all they can do. This is why the wonder and explore section of the inquiry framework are so important – children need time to share their knowledge and explore how things work.
Olivia – you could use the ideas you have suggested and make explicit links to the Inquiry framework as “design and make”.
You have identified your prompt – the question “can we make a strong bridge” and the children can wonder and explore as they look at images or find examples of bridges in their locality.
Then the investigate section becomes: Explore > Plan > Make > Evaluate
The sharing of results is a “next step” particularly if they consider what they would change if they were to do this again.
You might find the curious minds resource useful: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/pdfs/col/Curious_Minds_Resource_-_Design_a_bridge.pdf
Karen,
You could show the children videos of the astronauts on the Moon – this one shows the bouncing and jumping, which is a bit different from the “small, slow steps mimicking an astronaut.”
https://youtu.be/Zl_VdN6rfrQ?si=zkS6agAwEFAYuEoT
Apparently real moon rocks are jagged and sharp, because without an atmosphere there is no wind to assist in erosion, similarly, no water means no smoothing of the rocks.
Irene – do have a look at the Ramps and Pathways – it is a super approach. I have used foam pipe lagging from a builders’ providers, inexpensive and re-usable, I have lengths that I have been using for at least 10 years!
Susanne, there is a whole pedagogy “Ramps and Pathways” that is worth exploring from the University of Iowa. It has a superb page of questions to probe different types of reasoning and understanding:
Attention-focusing Questions
Where do you notice the marble coming off the track?
What have you noticed about the way this object moves down the track/along the pathway?
Why did you decide to put it here?
What did you do first?
Measuring and Counting Questions
How far did the marble travel/roll across the floor after it left the ramp?
How far did the marble fly off the end before it landed on the floor/hit the surface?
How high do you need to elevate the start of your ramp to make the marble travel all the way to this target?
Comparison Questions
How do these objects move differently on the track/pathway?
Which marble travels the farthest off the end of the ramp?
Is there a difference when you use a big marble versus a small marble? Heavy marble versus a light marble?Curious Minds have: https://www.sfi.ie/site-files/primary-science/media/flash/act23/Investigating_Slopes_Activity.pdf
Treasa- ack – I missed Helios! The scale comparison is 1:100. so if you have meter sticks you can have the children mark out the meter – and the Earth will be 1 cm.
If you have string you can prepare a 3.14m length of string, tie into a loop and have the children shape it into a circle (which will be 1m diameter), then you might ask them to make a circle of paper the size that they think the Earth is – most are very surprised at how small the Earth is vs the Sun.
Hi Eleanor,
I’ve seen a suitable activity on the Earth/Moon where children have different size spheres and have to try to find a partner to be Earth to their Moon, or Moon to their Earth.
https://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/earth-moon
This would be suitable for an older class, and naturally groups the children into pairs to work together.
It would be interesting to see if it could be extended to the solar system – the space week resource has ideas on modelling the solar system with fruit – so perhaps the children could choose from a variety of fruits to make their own solar systems in table groups.
https://www.spaceweek.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Classroom-Resource-Booklet-Our-Solar-System.pdf
Louise – I love your suggestion of extending the activity “by investigating areas most likely to have fingerprints.”
This really allow the inquiry thinking to come to the fore, as the children have developed the skill of taking fingerprints, have tried to make patterns from what they have seen and are now being challenged to apply this to a new context.
What a nice looking book:
https://www.ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com/Books/I-Am-Neil-Armstrong
A way to make the “our own moons using cornflour and conditioner.” into an inquiry approach is to wonder: “how much cornflour and conditioner will work?” and to let the children explore different mixtures, rather than giving the children a ‘recipe’ for them to follow. It takes a bit longer, but the learning is deeper as they mix and find out the proportions. Even better if they can start to explain that the mixture ‘works’ because…
I love the grains of sand and beach analogy. I also really like the author of the cartoon XKCD/ What If? has taken that idea and extended it (for adult level readers!) by considering the sizes of different types of stars>
“The little sand patch would contain 99% of the pile’s individual grains, but less than 1% of its total volume. Our Sun isn’t a grain of sand on a soft galactic beach; instead, the Milky Way is a field of boulders with some sand in between.
But, as with the real Earth seashore, it’s the rare little stretches of sand between the rocks where all the fun seems to happen.”