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?