Budget Friendly Science Lessons 3-5

Sally Creel sally.creel@cobbk12.org

Marlee Tierce mtierce@aol.com

An electronic copy of this presentation is available at www.cicobb.typepad.com/es

Imagine your students are graduating….

They know all the facts and skills taught to them over the years. All have learned fractions and earth science. They can read a great novel and write a perfect persuasive essay. They all have perfect CRCT scores. However, they have no passion, no wonder about life and the human condition. They are indifferent to nature and the environment. They rarely vote, they have little knowledge of what is happening in the country and the world, and they fill their days largely with working, watching TV, surfing the Internet, and shopping.

Source: PDK October 2008

Experiments you can do with your kids in the coming weeks…

Birds and Worms

• Punch out or cut out several colors of butterflies.

• Sprinkle them on different colors of construction paper, wrapping paper, newspaper, or fabric.– Have them pick up (using only their thumb and

forefinger) one bug at a time and put it on the side.

• OR– Have them count the number

of butterflies they see in one minute.

Water Cycle Baggie – S4E3

• Put in sunny spot for an hour or two & see what happens!

• Gallon Zippy Bag

• Markers

• Sand & Water

Chemical Reaction in a Baggie

• Baking Soda

• Calcium chloride

• Water

• Indicator

Constructive & Destructive S5E1

• Washcloth faults

• Wind Erosion

• Sugar Cube Earthquakes

Rolling Marbles

• Use a ruler with a grooved surface in the center.• Place five marbles in a row touching each other in

the center groove of the ruler.• Roll a sixth marble down the groove into the

marbles standing still.• Repeat the experiment, but this time roll two

marbles into the roll of five.• Continue to do this adding one more marble each

time.Don’t lose your marbles over this!

Cell Models – S5L3•Turn your door into a giant cell model. Make one door a plant cell and the other an animal cell.

•Have the kids create the parts and decorate.

Moon Phases – S4E2a,b

Shocking Static

• Plastic Wrap and Paper Towels– Hands– Yarn– Thread– Paper– Aluminum foil– Rice Krispies

Sugar Cube Erosion – S3E1d

• Rub two sugar cubes together over black paper. This simulates what happens to rocks bumping into each other and being weathered.

• Use a pipet to slowly drop water on a sugar cube. Again showing how water can weather rock.

Star Sizes –S4E1aTo demonstrate the size of different types of stars using the following items:

Supergiant – represented by a soccer ball

Super – represented by a tennis ball

Medium (our sun) – represented by a ping

pong ball

Dwarf – represented by a marble

Then challenge your students to come up with other items to model the different star sizes.

Construction Paper Food Chains

• Yellow paper (sun)

• Green paper (plants/producers)

• Blue paper (herbivores)

• Red paper (carnivores)

• Tape

• Markers

Chicken Sounds

• Tie one end of a piece of string to the middle of a paper clip.

• Use a pencil to poke the other end of the string through the bottom of a paper cup.

• Hold the cup with one hand and wet the string and your finger and thumb of the other hand.

• Squeeze the string and slide your fingers along the string quickly.

GA Habitats – S3L1

• Have students draw or cut out various GA plants & animals from magazines. Or request a set of GA habitats posters from the DNR.

• Paste on chart or put posters on the wall. • Give children a fly swatter with a hole cut out of

the middle. • Play Swatter by calling out specific

characteristics of a plant/animal or a region of GA where it would be found.

• The first kid to swat a correct plant/animal gets a point.

Straw Oboe

• Flatten the end of a plastic straw.• Cut the corners off of the flattened end to make

an inverted V.• With practice, you can produce a sound by

blowing into the straw.• Putting this straw into a straw with a larger

diameter can make a straw trombone to change pitch.

• Clipping off the straw will make the pitch change.

My New Pet – S3L1“I’m thinking of getting a new pet and I need your advice. I’ve always loved fish and I’m thinking about buying a cage to keep it in while I’m at school, but I think I’m going to let it sleep with me at night. I figure that since fish are so small they only need to eat once a week. I think I can just feed it leftovers from my dinner. What do you think?”

- Once kids stop looking at you like you’re crazy… have them explain why your plan won’t work. This will lead you into your discussion about needs of animals and habitats.

Light & Heat Demo

The Great State Debate

• Oobleck

• Shaving Cream