Place the desired quantity of each item into each sock.
Halfway down the sock, secure/close the sock with a rubber band.
Fold the top half of the sock down so that it completely covers up the bottom half of the sock.
Add the 2nd rubber band to the opening of the sock to secure it.
this will prevent items from falling out, students peeking into the sock, and provide an additional layer of material to conceal what is inside
Attach a numbered clothes pin to the sock.
Each group or pair of students will make observations on one sock at a time, then pass the sock to the next group when the timer goes off after 1 minute.
Mystery Sock with item secured inside
Procedures:
Discuss and share strategies students may use to determine what is inside a wrapped present before they open it. Students are using clues, or observations, and their problem solving skills to guess what is inside. They will know if their guess is correct once they open the gift. But what if we couldn’t open the gift, ever? How would we know what is inside? How would we know if we were right or not?
Introduce the activity to the students. They will have one minute to determine what is inside each sock. They can’t open the sock but they can use their hands to feel what is inside the sock.
Arrange students into pairs or groups.
Give each pair/group a mystery sock and ask them not to handle the sock until the timer starts.
Once the timer starts, students will make as many observations as they can and guess what is inside each sock.
Once the timer goes off, they will pass it to the next pair/group and the timer will start again.
Continue until students have made observations on all 10 socks.
Collect all 10 socks.
Share observations and guesses.
Open one sock at a time and reveal what is inside, and discuss.
Closure:
For thousands of years, we have been trying to figure out what an atom looks like, and what is inside the atom. We can’t ‘unwrap’ the atom and peak inside. But based on experiments and observations, we have our current atomic model.
Students will watch the BrainPOP movie and fill in notes about the Atomic Model
pre-cut 2 inch wide strips of construction paper (12×18) in the following colors – red*, pink, yellow, orange*, green, lt. blue, dk.blue, and black*
(*) be sure to have more of these colors since they are vowels
I used a paper cutter and was able to make a lot of strips very quickly ahead of time
markers
staplers
clothes pins and string to hang up in classroom
Protein Chains made by M.P.’s class Dec. 2017
Procedures:
This activity should be used after DNA and protein synthesis has been introduced. This activity will help reinforce the concept of how the sequence of DNA codons create specific amino acids, and in turn, the amino acids are joined together to create specific proteins. (link)
Each student will write the letters from their first and last name onto the student handout.
Using the chart, they will find the amino acid associated with the first letter of their first name.
For example, if the first letter is “L”, it will code for Leucine. They will select one of the codons for Leucine and write it on their chart.
Write the color of the paper link they will need for “L”, in this case, it is Red.
Repeat for every letter in their name.
Once their handout is completed, they will select the colored links, one for each letter of their name.
The colored links will be placed in the same order as the letters in their name.
On each link, write one of the codons for that letter. For example, “L” would be “CTT” on a Red link.
Loop and staple the first letter of their name.
Weave through the second letter and staple the loop closed.
Continue until all the letters have been linked together.
Hang up the protein chain, be sure to have the first letter of their name at the top.
Look for patterns – what color was used the most? Which group of amino acids was it? Which group of amino acids was used the least? Who had the longest name? Etc.
Middle School Science Blog 