Great News and Peppermint Science

The best news arrived yesterday... my It is Rocket Science! donorschoose project was fully funded. Now, after our Science Fair in February, the middle school students will be creating and launching rockets!

In our last science class of 2015, the students designed and executed an experiment using peppermints. The experiment was three fold:
1. Designing an experiment using the scientific method prepares them for their science fair project when we return.
2. The sugar melts away, which connects to our current unit on weathering and erosion.
3. Its the last science class before winter break, so peppermints are wintery and fun!

Here are some photos from the experiments:

Weathering, Erosion and Deposition

Here are a few videos, some serious, some pretty silly to help further your understanding of weathering, erosion and deposition:

Chemistry

Today, students who did not need additional review for science, did some chemistry. They had the option of periodic table of elements crossword or building chemical models with lego bricks.

This is my one of the greatest teaching moments: collaboration.

CO2

Rocketry Donors Choose

I started a new Donors Choose project for our middle school science curriculum: IT IS ROCKET SCIENCE!

For the next week, all donations are doubled using SPARK promo code!

Makey Makey Science elective

Students used the Makey Makey to create controllers for games on the computer. Some students even built their own games using Scratch. They used conductive materials in partner groups. This is day 2:

Day 1 was exploration of how to create a circuit using the Makey Makey and conductive surfaces:

Bristol Bots and Homopolar motors

Students assembled Bristle Bots from kits purchased through a RCEF grant. They assembled the mini robots with a partner using a small motor, battery, and toothbrush head. Then we dipped them into primary color paint and let them run on a white piece of paper. We had a visiting high school student who is doing a Career Exploration Passage on mechanical and electrical engineering.

Students also attempted a simple homopolar motor. We got the templates from Babbledabbledo.com.