Fun Summer Activity with Plants

It is very hard in Phoenix to actually get through the summer and figure out some fun things to do without baking too badly.  We function like you would if you were having a blizzard.  We basically stay inside all summer.  Unfortunately, the schools haven't figured out a better time for being on break around here!

My daughter and I were getting a little bored a few weeks ago and thought we should plant something in our planter.  We had some old pots that were left behind by the last people that lived in our house.  We basically turned the pot upside down and painted it to look like a little mushroom house.

We put this in our planter and planted an ice plant, sage, basil, and rosemary.  Then we made a little walkway out of polished stones, shells and sand.  I know this isn't really about middle school science but then you did want to know what teachers do with there summers, right?  Actually, I would say, using plants in a school setting is very powerful, especially if you have kids that are living in an urban setting.  They typically really love to germinate seeds and watch the magic of plant growth!

Spooky Science

Today  Halloween fell on a Monday.  I struggled with what to do with my sixth grade science class and came up with a Halloween story with demonstrations.  I wrote a story last night until 11pm.  It was actually a pretty good story all and all.  It was basically about three kids trick-or-treating and finding themselves exploring an abandoned house only to find a wrinkled lady with a very pointed black hat.  During the story I used dry ice for a number of demonstrations that the kids loved.  One of these included taking a metal ice cream scoop and holding it against the dry ice.  This makes a great squeaky door sound.  Actually it was more like a screaming door!  I plan to revise my story and post it to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to help teachers for next years Halloween.  It turned out to be a very enjoyable day.

P.O.E.

P.O.E. stands for Predict, Observe, and Explain.  I use this in my classroom every Wednesday.  The only hard part about it is getting a demonstration together to show my students.  Last week I did a P.O.E. where I poured water down a wet string from one beaker to another. Before I actually did the demonstration I asked them to predict what would happen when I poured the water.  They usually write this prediction down in their notebooks as part "P".  I then do my demonstration and the students observe and write their observations in part "O".  The hardest part is "E" which is explain.  My student have to explain why things happened as they did during the demonstration.  They all look forward to P.O.E days!  Oh gotta run, P.O.E. day is tomorrow!

You Might Be a Geologist if....

I was trained as a geologist so I will be commenting on some "You might be a geologist if..." statements to see if they are accurate!  Here it goes.

You might be a geologist if...

1.  You think recent events are anything that happened at least 100,000 years ago.
Yep this is right. 

2.  Your rock collection takes up more shelf space than your family photos.
True, I try to keep some family photos around too.

3.  You can pronounce molybdenite correctly on the first try.
True.  I think my first word was molybdenite!

4.  You don't think of "cleavage" the same way everyone else does.
Very true.  7th graders like this word!

5.  You have intentionally taken a 15-passenger van over "roads" intended for cattle.
My professors did this all the time.  It's called a field trip!

6.  You own more than half of the "Roadside Geology" books.
I actually own 3 of these but I wish I owned more. 

7. You feel compelled to examine the gravel in other people's driveways.
True.  My last post showed a rock in my grandmother's yard, actually.

8.  You think road cuts are tourist attractions.
Aren't they???

9.  Your map for your next road trip is marked with the locations of a series of interesting roadcuts.
True.  That's what the Roadside Geology books are for.

10.  You get upset when movies have glaring geological inaccuracies and point them out to everyone in the theater.
*cough*cough* Dante's Peak!

Fun Things to Do in Science Class

Before I start my astronomy unit I usually have students do a fun activity.  Students are given toilet paper, construction paper, NASA stickers, foil, tape, and 10 minutes.  Within that 10 minutes they have to figure out how to construct something that looks like a spacesuit on one of their group members.  It is hilarious to watch. 
I did a similar activity in Houston when I was a part of NEAT (Network of Educator Astronaut Teachers).  All of us applied to become astronauts and were invited down to Houston.  During our spacesuit activity we only had toilet paper but were allowed to use anything on our tables.  Since this activity took place after dinner, you can imagine what ended up in our spacesuit.  Salad bowls, tablecloths, and certain utensils made excellent astronauts.  I can remember how much fun we had as adults doing this and that is what led me to repeating it in my classroom.  Excitement works great for motivation!

Rovers, Rovers Everywhere!

Well the rover project has come to a close today.  There are so many rovers my entire classroom was completely full.  This was probably the best end of the year project I have ever done with a class.  The rovers were so varied and creative from all of my students  There should be many future engineers, and scientists coming from this generation.

My lesson culminated with building a rover, but first my students had to find out about Mars and pick a mission.  They created a mission patch for their group and named their rover.  They then went about creating their own Mars Rover.  The had to stick to a $2,000,000.00 budget during the project.  That meant that they could not purchase items from me that would exceed that amount.  They could buy things like metallic paper, foil, NASA stickers etc. and my prices were greatly inflated!  This meant that they had to use mostly recyclable items to build their rover.  They used boxes, paper towel tubes, soda cans, plastic juice containers etc.  I think they did an amazing job.  We had a lot of fun the last few days!

If you are interested in this lesson to build rovers in your classroom I have posted it in my store at Teachers Pay Teachers.  Here is the link:
Mars Rovers Project

Paper Airplanes!

Just got a very cool video from Steve Spangler.  It is a hovering paper airplane.  To watch the video just follow this link:
Floating Paper Airplane

Another neat airplane trick that I like to do in my science class is the Ring Wing Glider.  I usually ask a student to stand back to back with me and their job is to tell me the procedures for making a paper airplane.  We both have paper etc.  They start folding their paper airplane and giving me instructions and I pretend to follow their directions.  Actually, though, I am follow my own instructions for the Ring Wing Glider.  The student usually ends up with a regular looking airplane that actually looks like an airplane and I end up with something that looks like a circle.  It is actually a wing that flies but they don't know this.  They fly their airplane and it usually flies ok.  I fly my silly looking circle thing and it flies across the room.  Very fun and gets all kinds of laughs.  It is something of a discrepant event actually.  If you would like to try this in your classroom go to this link for instruction on the Ring Wing Glider:


Instructions for the Ring Wing Glider
Scroll down until you find it on the page.
You will have to practice before doing this in front of a class, however:)
NASA also has instructions for students in a pdf format. You can search for ring wing glider and these will also come up.  Have fun!