UNIT 1

UNIT 1

This week students are working on rockets. Steps include finding its center of mass and pressure, swing tests and launch results journal.

Design you own bread recipe that will allow rising. Shape your dough into a rocket. Make a prediction on how high your bread will rise and how much time it will take to rise. If it doesn’t work the first time, try again. What causes the bread to rise? What ingredients did you use? Don’t forget to taste the finished product!

UNIT 2

This week students continue to work on rocket design and construction and to design an investigation that needs to be changed, controlled and measured.

Design an experiment using magnets. Make a list of common household materials that you predict will be attracted to magnets. Why are some materials attracted to magnets and some are not? Write up your hypothesis based on your personal experience in this experiment.

UNIT 3

Students are looking at how forces, such as pressure and buoyancy, act on objects.

Design an experiment using a glass bottle and a balloon. Freeze the water in the open bottle for about 1 hour. Place a balloon over the mouth of the bottle. What happens? Let the bottle remain at room temperature for 30 minutes. Record any changes.

Do the same experiment only with warm water. What are your predictions? What are the factors which caused the changes in your balloon and why?

UNIT 4	Students are looking at how force and motion are related and interact, how forces act on objects and cause acceleration. Using a complete deck of cards, individually place each card standing upright very close to the next card on a smooth hard surface. Create a pattern with the cards such as a circle, crooked line, etc. Using a slight push of your finger, tap the leading card. What happens to the remaining cards? Design several patterns of cards. Record and time how long it takes for the whole deck of cards to fall down each time. Describe how and why this process works

UNIT 5	Students are working on several different types of chemical reaction experiments, including writing ionic and chemical formulas. Design an experiment with your parents using baking soda and white vinegar. Measure amounts before you combine the two ingredients and make the system a closed one by putting a balloon over the top or your container or using a plastic bag. What happens when you mix these two compounds? How can you measure the end result, including the vapor? Be sure to conduct this chemical experiment with your parents!

UNIT 6	This week students continue to work with atomic numbers, the periodic table and chemical formulas.

UNIT 7 UNIT 7 Continued	Students continue to work on chemical and physical properties of matter, chemical elements, compounds and mixtures. Students also examine water and its circulation in the hydrologic cycle. Materials: Two trays or round cake pans. Water to fill both pans. Predict which water state is heavier, liquid or solid? Weigh the water before you start. Then fill the trays with water. Place both trays in the freezer and time how long it take for the water to freeze solid? Weigh the water now in its solid state. Which state, if any, was heavier? Remove the ice from both pans and place on a large waterproof surface (such as an even larger tray). Place a heavy object on top of one of the ice blocks. How much time does it take for both blocks to melt? Was there any difference between the melting times? Why does this happen?

UNIT 8	Students are looking at water budget and water analysis (density, salinity, temperature, sediment, turbidity, pH and dissolved oxygen). Measure the total amount of water that you and your family use in one day. Each time the toilet is flushed it uses at least 5 gallons of water. How can you accurately calculate the amount of water used when taking a shower or bath? or in doing a load of clothes in the washing machine? Design a method in which you can make accurate estimates. Once you have your total amount of water used in a day, figure out how you reduce that amount by a quarter. There are a lot of tricks for conserving water in our lives. Good luck!

. UNIT 9	Students are studying the properties of water such as latent heat, surface tension, diffusion and solubility. Measure about 1/4 cup of water into a container. The water should be at room temperature. Add a small amount of salt (1/4 tsp.) and stir mixture. Continue to add salt until the salt does not dissolve any more and instead falls to bottom of container after stirring. Record the amount of salt used and the temperature of the water. How much salt did this amount of water hold? Repeat experiment using ice cold water (melt ice cubes in water) and again using boiling water. Does the temperature of the water affect the amount of salt the water can hold? Why or why not?



UNIT 10	Students are studying cells this week and trying to develop an understanding of categories (plants, animals, fungi, various microorganisms) and that each categories has many species of living organisms. Create several starch and water mixtures and pour into a shallow pan (like a plastic container top). Place mixtures in a cool, dim spot and check each day for growth. What organisms grew on the mixture(s) and how long did it take? Did the amount of starch in the water make a difference in the growth of the organisms? Use a hand lens to examine the growth closer. Is there more than one type of growth? Record your results.

UNIT 11

UNIT 12

. UNIT 13	Students are studying the physical processes acting on the earth such as erosion, weathering, deposition, compaction, cementation, melting, heating (without melting), pressure and crystallization. Make a batch of cookie dough. Add different ingredients to different cookies (oatmeal, raisons, chocolate chips, nuts, etc.). Write down a list of what was put in each cookie including the contents in the dough. Place on cookie sheet and put in oven. If possible, observe the cookies as they bake. Does the form of the dough change? Remove from oven when cookies are done. Can you still recognize all the ingredients you put in the cookies? Which ones can you still see? The different ingredients in the dough represent different ingredients in rocks. One rock may have large, dark minerals (raisons) while another may have hard, tan to white minerals (nuts). A change of any ingredient (mineral) in the rock changes the type of rock! While the cookies are still hot, pull one apart. Does this change any of the ingredients? Rocks that are pulled apart while they are still hot are called metamorphic rocks.

UNIT 14	Students are looking again at relationships between living organisms and seeing how these relationships help scientist decide into which category to place each species. Take a walk outside for 15 minutes. Bring a notebook and pencil and write down as many living organisms as you can. Remember that not all living organisms run, fly or swim! Bring your list inside and try to divide up the organisms into categories, such as: does it fly? does it have eyes? is it green? does it have antennae? How many categories did you create? Do they match the scientific categories?

UNIT 15	Students are examining energy and how it cannot be destroyed or created but exists in different interchangeable forms such as light, heat, chemical, electrical and mechanical. Cut 12 arrows out of construction paper. Draw a big picture on a piece of paper and trace the path of energy from the sun to a living organism to the earth. Use the arrows to trace the flow of the energy. How does the energy from the sun go into a living organism (like a plant)? Where does the energy go from there? Where does the energy eventually end up? How does the energy get back to a sun? Can you change the direction of some of the arrows? Try to add as many steps as you can.

UNIT 16 UNIT 16 Continued	Students are exploring the influences science and technology have on today’s society through a whale watch program. Write down as many whales as you can think of and then write down their size (length, width, etc.). With your parent(s), take a piece of chalk and go outside to a paved surface (make sure there is no traffic!) or take a stick and go to a beach. Try to draw the size of your favorite whale. If you have a very small space to work with, then use a scale such as 10 feet on a whale equals one foot on the ground. How many kids would have to lie down head to toe to be as long as the whale? How many cars would fit inside? How many whales would fit in your house? OR find out how many people live in the US and make a pile of people using beans or coins or M&M’s. Use a scale such as 1 bean equals 1000 people. Find out how many whales live in the N. Atlantic Ocean. Make a separate pile of whales using above materials. Which pile is bigger? How many people are there per each whale? Can people affect the life of a whale? How?

UNIT 17	Students are studying energy and the different forms energy may take such as light, heat, chemical changes. Where does the energy your family needs each day come from? How many forms of energy can you find being used in your community? How does solar energy work? Visit a local power plant.

UNIT 18	Student are exploring what heat energy is and how it moves from one object to another until both objects are the same temperature. Try this experiment: Look around your house or apartment for objects to sit on. Have everyone select an object. First feel the object (metal works well, why?) Then have everyone sit on their object for a predetermined length of time. Now have everyone feel the object, is it warmer? Why? Design other ways to determine how heat is transferred among objects.

UNIT 19 UNIT 19 Continued	Students are looking at the earth and how heat energy moves through it. With your family, create an erupting volcano using baking soda and white vinegar. How exactly can you cause a minor volcanic eruption? Measure the amount of vinegar, baking soda and red dye that you use. How much is needed to cause the ‘lava flow’? Measure the height, width and volume of your ‘volcanoes’. Use the following vinegar dough recipe to make a volcano: 3 to 3 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup salt 1 to 1 1/2 cup water 1/4 cup oil 2 tbs. vinegar.

UNIT 20	Students continue to look at the earth and the materials and energy from which it is made. Design an edible model of the earth which has a different material color for each layer. Use a scale such a 1000 miles (or more!) equals 1 inch to translate the thickness of the layers. What did you use for the crust? How thick was the crust compared to the mantle? Use string licorice to trace the path of the two types of earthquake waves. Don’t forget to enjoy your treat once you are done!

UNIT 21	Students are looking at weather and climate and how these are affected by human activities. Design an experiment where you track temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure over a period of time (maybe use a newspaper for a week or so). Make sure you do not look at an explanation of the weather on the news or weather channel! Create your own weather explanation of the past week or so and forecast the following weeks weather based on your observations (e.g. cold, clear days may indicate a high pressure system). Where you successful in predicting the weather for the following week? Why or why not? How were the variables you studied interrelated? Good luck!

UNIT 22 UNIT 22 Continued	Students continue to study weather and the long term average of weather (climate). Pick a room in your house which has different climates during a 24 hour period (like the bathroom or kitchen). Design a schedule which allows you to track moisture and temperature in set time increments. How and why did the weather change over 24 hours? What factors changed the moisture level? Was the climate different at night? What type of climate would you say this room has?

UNIT 23

UNIT 35	Students are learning rock classifications, such as igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic, and that rocks are continuously undergoing change through different processes (weathering, heat, pressure). Visit a local park or cemetery. Look for monuments and stone markers. How many show signs of wear. What factors are causing the condition you see? Compare rocks found at the beach or in a river bed to those you find buried in your yard. Are they shaped differently? Why?

UNIT 36	Students continue to learn about rocks and their formation. Make a recipe for a batch of cookie dough. For igneous rock cookies, add ingredients such as chocolate chips, raisons, nuts, etc. For sedimentary rock cookies divide up some dough into 3 sections. Add 2 different food dyes to two of the sections. Roll all three sections of dough out flat and then stack the three layers on top of one another. Bake the cookies. Take an igneous cookie and a sedimentary cookie and stretch and mash them up while they are still hot. Congratulations! You have just created a metamorphic rock cookie. Three different rock cookies from essentially the same ingredients. Same as real rocks.