Lab #1 Weather, Calendar, Seasons

Friday, Sept 20th 8:00-11:00

Send me your ideas on what stations we should do next!!!  Let me know if you can make it in!
musicalmom@cebridge.net

Introduction:
Good morning kid scientists!!!  How many of you remember the science labs from last year?  Do you remember what the different seasons are? (Fall, winter, spring, summer).  Do you remember what makes the different seasons? (Earth's tilt).  Let's do a quick demo for everyone who missed lab last year -

volunteer will be the sun, choose one of the students to be an earth - make sure the earth "tilts" or faces the same way - towards one of the walls of the classroom - as they walk around the sun. 




Tell them we're going to do some different activities this year, that each of their stations is going to be centered around one of the seasons - then quickly split into groups, and get started!!  Try to keep the intro short, so that they have as much time as possible at their stations!

Station #1 Fall

Good scientists make lots of diagrams and sketches to record what they find!  Let's make some diagrams of leaf structures, and then study the veins and leaf shapes that we find.  

Do a craft with fall leaves, talk about the weather in the fall, harvest time, thanksgiving and Halloween holidays etc.  I'll have a plastic table cloth and wet-naps to try and contain the mess... if the shoe polish seems to dangerous for your group of kids to use, just go with the washable paint :-), I'll leave it to you to judge. 

Why do leaves change color?  Read why they do here!
http://www.esf.edu/pubprog/brochure/leaves/leaves.htm

Station 2 Winter:

Make snowflakes. 

Did you know that most snowflakes have 6 sides?  This is because of the bonding between the atoms that make up the snowflake.

Generally:

•  six-sided hexagonal crystals are shaped in high clouds
•  needles or flat six-sided crystals are shaped in middle height clouds
•  and a wide variety of six-sided shapes are formed in low clouds. 
• Colder temperatures produce snowflakes with sharper tips on the sides of the crystals and may lead to branching of the snowflake arms (dendrites). 
• Snowflakes that grow under warmer conditions grow more slowly, resulting in smoother, less intricate shapes. - link

Does anyone have a little laptop they could bring in to show some winter videos on while they are cutting up their snowflakes?

Ask them if they have ever seen snow - and tell them they can make their own snow and ice in their freezer at home.  What makes snow and ice?  Water!  Tell them to take a small cup of water at home, stick it in the freezer, and then wait to see what happens to it!

Station #3 Spring and Summer

Make tissue paper flowers, talk about flowers and the parts of a flower (look at real flower) and why there are flowers in the spring and summer.

I ordered some nice white daisies to soak up dye over the weekend in their classroom.  Ask them thinking questions:
Why do we put cut flowers in a vase with water?  why do they need water?
What would happen if we added coloring to the water?  Do you think the coloring would help us see how the flower uses the water?  Scientists often use dyes to track changes and see how things behave.  Do they remember what a hypothesis is?  Tell them to make a hypothesis about what will happen to the flowers that are placed in a container with dye!  (Leave one flower out of the dye in just plain water so they can compare?  The florist told me it needs to be ~60% dye, and 40% water - I'll have the solution mixed up for each class before the lab)








Lab #1 Volunteers: email me to sign up!
musicalmom@cebridge.net
(I'll just post your first names here - email me if you can make it, and let me know what classes you would like to work with / what time you are able to be here for)

**Drop-in's are welcome!!! It always helps to have more than one person at a station, so even if you weren't able to get your info to me (or your name isn't listed below) please come anyways!!! The more the merrier!


Emily Duerringer  8:00

Station 1. _Amanda ___
Station 2._Jack (Morgan)_______
Station 3._Teresa (Sophia)_____

Cheryl Kennedy 8:00

Station 1. Jamie__
Station 2. Morton (Ross)_____
Station 3._Vivian______ 

Kelly Johnson 9:00

Station 1. Pilar_______
Station 2._Jack ____ _
Station 3._Vivian (Logan)____ 

 Meghan Goodman 9:00

Station 1. Jamie _____
Station 2. Amanda______
Station 3. Emily _____
   
Teresa Welch - 10:00-11:00
(this is the big class, so we'll need lots of volunteers!!)
Station 1. _Kelly & Steve ______
Station 2._Jennifer (Chloe)______
Station 3._Emily (Audrey)___


(next lab Johnson and Kennedy's class will switch so that Johnson is at 8:00, and Kennedy is at 9:00)