In Science Class . . . Week of 12/5

This week, we'll begin talking about the Emerson Science Fair! Students will be able to work alone or in pairs to investigate a topic. Projects will be presented to the little kids during the day on Feb 2 and in the evening that same day. I will be available Tuesday afternoons after school in January for additional help. A packet of information will be coming home in English and Spanish this week. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. This is our first Science Fair since I've been at Emerson, so I suspect it will be a learning experience for all of us : )

In Science Class . . . Week of 12/5

This week in science, we acted like geologists and broke apart our fake rocks to see what "minerals" were inside. The students were able to identify several different ingredients, including red and green gravel, shells and some gray material. We then used water to see if we could separate the gray material. Key Questions:

• What is the difference between a rock and a mineral? (Minerals are the ingredients of rocks and are just one type of substance, while rocks are made of many types of minerals.)
• What types of "minerals" did you find in the "mock rock" Ms Jenkins made? (Most groups will find red and green gravel, shells, and gray material that we separated with water)
• What do geologists do? (They study rocks and make observations about the shape, size, texture, color, shininess, mass.)
• How are rocks and minerals used by humans? (We use them in various mixtures for roads, houses, jewelry, etc)
  

In Science Class . . . Week of 11/28

On Tuesday, we went over our most recent quiz and got our notebooks set up for our new unit. If you or your child is not happy with their quiz grade, they are welcome to study at home and retake it on Thursday or Tuesday. Just let me know!

Our new unit is on earth science. On Thursday, we'll be examining some fake and real rocks and discussing what sort of information geologists collect. Students will be working with the measuring tape and balances to collect data on the circumference, mass and diameter of their rocks.

• What sorts of information do geologists collect when when they study rocks? (They look at the size, shape, texture, location, color, luster, etc. They also will weigh and measure the rocks)
• What did your rock look like? What did you notice about your rock? (Most of the fake rocks are gray with red and blue "minerals.")
• What tools did you use to collect information? (We used a measuring tape for circumference and diameter. The unit of measurement being centimeters. For the mass, we used a balance and took the mass in grams.)
  

In Science Class . . . . Week of 11/14

This week, the students examined packaging of common food items to try and figure out what atoms the food is made of. They found that most food contains lots of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, which are the common building blocks of carbohydrates, fats, proteins. It's important for students to understand that most living things (including the food we eat) is primarily made up nonmetals.

Next week, on Tuesday, we will be taking a quiz on mixtures, solutions, chemical reactions, periodic table, etc. On Thursday, students will complete a study guide that has all the required information. This will go home and students can study at home. The quiz will also be open-notebook so students can use their notebook as a resource, too.

After Thanksgiving break, we will be starting our Earth Science unit that includes rocks, minerals, and landforms.

In Science Class . . . Week of 10/31

Happy Halloween!! The 4th and 5th graders have been continuing our exploration of chemical reactions. On Tuesday, we observed how a reaction between calcium chloride, baking soda and water caused the production of a gas. We mixed the reactants in a zip lock bag so that the bag expanded when the reaction took place. We even had a couple popped bags!! This reaction produced a precipitate (solid), too, which was a white powder. On Thursday, we examined the periodic table, discussed atoms, and looked at two key properties of metals - heat and electricity conduction. We watched butter melt on various metals in a hot water to see how well they conducted electricity, and we put them between open wires of a circuit to see if they conducted electricity. We found that all metals, including alloys, did and wood and plastic did not.

• What do all metals have in common? (Solid - except mercury- on earth, able to be flattened, can conduct heat and electricity, strong)
• What is evidence of a chemical reaction? (Color change, gas production, heat change)
• What is happening to the atoms in a chemical reaction? (They are re-arranging)

Note: Because of conferences next week, we will be doing vocab and review work. Investigations will continue the week of 11/14.

PLEASE: If you have any old food or household packages or bags (that aren't gross) that have the ingredients listed on them, send them in with your student for class on 11/15. Anything would be great - chip bags, cereal boxes, bread bags, toothpaste boxes, soda cans, etc. We'll be looking for elements on the package. Cereals are especially fun since there are often minerals added for nutritional value like iron, zinc etc. Thanks!

Bay Area Science Festival Starting Soon!

Hi, everyone,

For the first time, there will be area-wide science festival that has a number of free programs for families and adults from Oct 29-November 5. This is a coordinated effort between a ton of organizations! I'm really excited about it, and I hope to see of you out there as well. Here's the link to the website:

http://www.bayareascience.org/

Go Science Education!
Ms. Jenkins

In Science Class . . . Week of 10/24

This week, 4/5 students will be continuing their study of chemical reactions. Last week, we learned that chemical reactions occur when two or more substances mix together and their atoms rearrange into new configurations (producing new substances). This week, we will look more closely at the combination of calcium chloride, water and baking soda and use a indicator (red cabbage juice) that will react to create a number of color changes. On Thursday, I'll be at a science training, so students will be watching a Bill Nye video on chemical reactions with the substitute.

• What kind of evidence tells you that a chemical reaction has taken place? (production of gas, color change, temperature change)
• What are some examples of fast chemical reactions? (Anything burning is a chemical reaction)
• What are some examples of changes that are not chemical reactions? (Phase changes, like melting or boiling)
  

In Science Class . . . Week of 10/10

This week in science, we have been looking at chemical reactions! During a chemical reaction, a mixture of chemicals changes to produce new substances. We did several chemical reactions on Thursday and observed changes. The evidence we saw of a chemical reaction included a color change, a temperature change and/or production of a gas (bubbles). (A common chemical reaction that produces a gas is mixing baking soda and vinegar. )

Key questions:

• What happens in a chemical reaction? (The atoms rearrange to form something new).
• What are common pieces of evidence for chemical reactions? (Change in color, change in temperature, bubbles)

Next week, we'll look at the molecular changes that occur in chemical reactions.

In Science Class . . . Week of 10/3

This week, we'll be continuing to learn about saturation. For each solid that is mixed with water, there is a point in which the water cannot hold any more of the solid. This point differs based on what the solid is. Last week, we saturated a salt solution. Today, we'll be working with Epsom salt. Both dissolve in water, but have different amounts before reaching saturation. On Thursday, we'll identify a mystery substance based on its saturation point.
Key questions:

• What is saturation? How did you know that your solution was saturated? (No more solid could dissolve no matter how hard we shook the bottle of water and the solid remained visible.)
• How did Epsom salt's saturation point differ from regular salt? (About 14 grams of salt saturate 50 ml of water, but 48 grams of Epsom salt are needed to saturate the same amount of water. Therefore, Epsom salt has a higher solubility than regular salt.)
• What was the mystery substance? How did you identify it?
  

In Science Class . . . . Week of 9/26

This week, we'll be studying phases of matter and saturation. The key experiment will be looking at how much salt can dissolve in 50 ml of water. When the solution is saturated, no more solid (salt) will dissolve and it will remain visible.
Key questions:

• What is a solution? (A mixture where the solid can dissolve in liquid, like salt in water.)
• How did you know your solution was saturated? (The salt couldn't dissolve any more and we could see it at the bottom of the bottle.)
• How did you find out how much salt was dissolved in the solution? (We filtered out the salt chunks and weighed the solution, and then subtracted 50 grams for the 50 ml of water.)
  

In Science Class . . .Week 9/19

This week, we'll be continuing with separating mixtures. Students will make a dry mixture of powder, salt and gravel and come up with a plan to separate them using the tools we've used. Next week, we'll start work on saturating solutions by seeing how much salt can dissolve in 50 ml of water.
Key questions:

• What was your plan for separating the dry mixture? (Most groups will add water, then used the screen to separate out the gravel, the filter to separate out the powder and then evaporation to separate the salt and water at the end.
• Did it work? What would you change in the future?

In Science Class . . . Week of 9/12

This week, the 4th and 5th graders are working on putting together mixtures and then separating them using filters, screens and evaporation. Last week we mixed gravel and water, powder and water, and salt and water. The screen and filter were able to separate the gravel mixture and the powder mixture, but the salt dissolved in the water and passed through both. We will use evaporation to get rid of the water, leaving behind salt crystals. On Thursday, we'll investigate how to determine the mass of salt in water without measuring the salt directly on a balance.
Key questions to ask your student:

• What is a mixture and what are some examples? (Any two or more substances put together. Examples are infinite! )
• What is a solution? (A special type of mixture where the solid dissolves, like salt in water.)
• What tools can we use to separate mixtures and solutions? (Screen, filters, evaporation)
• How did you find the mass of the salt on Thursday?

Welcome to 4th and 5th Grade Science!

Yes, friends, it's that time of year again! Welcome to my blog about all of our fabulous explorations in science class. On this blog, I'll post our weekly topics and some key questions you can ask your student to review material and extend thinking. I'll also try to add some links to science -related community events.

A welcome letter from me will go home with Thursday folders next week , but feel free to contact me if you have questions. I will also be at Back to School Night. My new BUSD email is caitlinjenkins@berkeley.net.

Here's what we've been up to in class:

In the first week of class, we did a fun activity that tested our sense of smell. I put common items in containers covered with a paper towel. Students smelled and reported what they thought was in the cup. The idea was to have some fun on the first day, and to also introduce some key parts of the scientific method - focus question, data collection, conclusion.

Since then, we've been working on getting our science notebooks set up. I have a grand vision for them this year - they now are more organized, have sentence starters to help kids and a work habits self reflection section.

Our first activity for our physical science unit was yesterday. Students conducted observations of some solids (gravel, powder, salt) and then mixed them with water to create a mixture. We then attempted to separate these three mixtures using a screen and a coffee filter. We had success with two of the mixtures, but weren't able to separate the salt and water. We'll work on this on Friday and next week!

Key questions to ask your 4th/5th grader:

• What smells were the hardest for you to identify?
• How did you separate the three mixtures?
• What are some other mixtures you know?
• How is your science group working? What grade did you give yourself on science work habits? (1-4, with 4 being excellent)

In Science Class . . . Weeks of 3/14 and 3/21

Over the past two weeks, the students have been further exploring the properties of magnets. We conducted an investigation that examined how increasing the space between magnets decreases the magnetic force. We also have been looking at the earth's magnetic field. We built our own compasses by hanging magnets on a string off of the table, and observed how they all oriented the same way (facing N-S toward the poles of the earth). We also looked at real compasses and discussed why they work, and how they detect the magnetic field of a magnet when it gets close. This week, we used compasses and iron objects to find the location of magnets in a box.

Over the next week, we'll be working on putting together demonstrations of fun experiments we've done in 4/5 science. During the week of 3/28, younger students in grades K-3 will be coming to visit the science room and see our demonstrations and activities.  We also will be doing some demonstrations at Math and Science Night on Wednesday, March 30, so mark your calendars!

In Science Class . . . Week of 2/28

Hello, everyone! Many apologies for the delay in blogging - it's been a very busy couple weeks with overnight field trips, report cards, etc. Here's what we've been working on:

We just wrapped up our Living Systems Unit and the students took a quiz last week. Many did quite well. These will go home next week. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this.

We've started our last unit of the year, entitled "Magnetism and Electricity." Last week, we experimented with what magnets stick to, and how they interact with each other. Key questions:

• What type of objects did your magnet stick to? (Any object with with a lot of iron, including stainless steel objects)
• What happens when two magnets are pushed together? (If the opposite poles are facing each other, then the magnets will attract. If like poles are facing each other, such as north and north, or south and south, then the magnets will repel.)
• Can the force of magnetism act through other materials? (Yes, unless the material is really thick! Magnets stick to each other through paper and other thin materials, but many of the tables in the science room were too thick for the magnets to attract each other.)
• What happens when you stick a paper clip to an iron nail that is touching a magnet? (The iron nail becomes a temporary magnet and will act on the paper clip, making a fun chain of objects! FYI, magnets that stick to the fridge and are always magnets are called permanent magnets. )

Here is a diagram. We used "doughnut" magnets instead of bar magnets, but you get the idea! The iron nail and paper clips become temporary magnets.

In Science Class . . . Week of 1/24

This week in science, we've continued our learning about how plants make energy (and gain mass) and how other organisms use that energy. We did an experiment with yeast. By giving the yeast sugar (in the form of crumbled up Chips Ahoy cookies), they became active and started cellular respiration. This process produces carbon dioxide as a waste product, which caused our bags of yeast and warm water to puff up! We used a tool to measure that gas produced as well as the amount of gas produced by the control experiment (no cookies), which was zero in most cases.
Key questions to ask your student:

• What organisms make their own energy? How can we tell that they are making energy? (Gain mass, grow)
• In the experiment with yeast, how did we know that the yeast were burning sugar? (They produced carbon dioxide as a waste product)
• Can you think of other organisms that produce carbon dioxide as a waste product of cellular respiration? (Most animals, including humans!)

In Science Class . . . Week of 1/17

The 4th and 5th graders have been wrapping up our study of vascular plant systems. We watched a video on plant structure and growth earlier this week, and yesterday, we studied different vein patterns in leaves we found around the school yard. Thanks to the huge wind storm, there were a ton of great options around! Here are some examples:

Palmate:

Pinnate:

Parallel:

Key Questions:

• How do vascular plants get water and sugar to cells? (Xylem transports water up from the roots, while phloem transports it downward to other cells. Both xylem and phloem are part of "veins" that we see on leaves.)
• What leaf patterns did you see in your leaves that you collected?

In Science Class . . . Week of 1/10

Hi, everyone! Happy New Year! Apologies for not getting this out to you last week. We had a major power outage during the time I normally update the blog! Anyway, here's what we have been working on:

We've just wrapped up our human body systems and have started looking at the ways plants get energy, water and gas to their cells. This week, we've been experimenting on celery. We set up an experiment to see which type of celery uses more water - celery with leaves or celery without leaves. Students also got to put red food coloring in the water so that we could track the flow of water up the stem and into the leaves. Here are some key questions:

• What do plant and animal cells have in common? (All need food, water, gas exchange and waste disposal)
• How do vascular plants transport water? (There are tubes in vascular plants called xylem that bring water from the bottom up into the leaves. These tubes turned red in our celery experiment due to the red water we used.)
• What would be analogous in the human body to xylem in plants? (Probably our circulatory system of veins and arteries, though we obviously have a heart that pumps it around, while plants depend on evaporation out of the leaves to draw water upwards.)
• What did you find from your experiment? (Celery with leaves used more water. This is because the evaporation out of the leaves "pulls" water molecules from below. )

Here's a nice cross section photo of what we worked on. This photo also includes some celery where blue food coloring was used. We only used red, but using other colors would be a great at-home project!