Friday, March 14, The Boise State University Microgravity Research Team participated in its first Outreach Event with Ms. Jennifer Jarvis's fifth grade class, at Mountain View Elementary School.
Students received new STEM notebooks and took part in a group discussion about the scientific method. This provided the student with a good general understanding of the research process, including the development and testing of a hypothesis. As the lesson developed, the students started to understand the importance of recording fine details in their science notebook.
Activities in this lesson included Roll Back Cans and Identify a Lime.
During the Identify a Lime activity, pairs of students were provided a lime and asked to make a detailed drawing of their lime and make five specific observations in their science notebooks. Once the students were finished the limes were collected and mixed up. Students then had to find and identify their lime using their descriptive observations and drawings. Most of the students were able to identify their own lime.
Students were excited to hear about the next lesson, which will be held Friday, April 4.
Students received new STEM notebooks and took part in a group discussion about the scientific method. This provided the student with a good general understanding of the research process, including the development and testing of a hypothesis. As the lesson developed, the students started to understand the importance of recording fine details in their science notebook.
Activities in this lesson included Roll Back Cans and Identify a Lime.
During the Roll Back Cans activity, students made observations and predictions based on the differences in the behavior between the three different cans presented.
When our “engineered” can surprisingly rolled backwards, after it was pushed forward, we explained to the class the concept of transfer of energy. The can rolled backward after of the kinetic energy of movement becomes stored as potential energy in the weighted rubber band, that twists as the can rolls forward. When the can no longer moves forward, the stored potential energy in the rubber band is released back as kinetic energy, as the rubber band unwinds and the can rolls backwards.
For a second challenge the limes were again collected and mixed up. This time, however, students had to find someone else's lime using someone else's notebook. The students realized in this part of the lesson why specific details were important to successfully identifying their limes.
The students agreed that the notebooks with: color drawing; labels; measurements; and descriptions of scars, scar patterns, and numbers of scars were most helpful in identifying the limes. As a way to improve this lesson, we discussed providing students with the opportunity to weigh their lime.
Students were excited to hear about the next lesson, which will be held Friday, April 4.
