This lesson plan was modified to be used along with the novel “Hoot” by Carl Hiaasen. It can be used as a stand alone lesson as part of your Ecology Unit.
Objectives:
simulate the struggle for survival of an owl family.
bring food back to the nest despite obstacles.
feed and take care of owlets.
live in a nest as an owlet.
experience how adaptations affect a species.
discuss the importance of resources for a community.
Updated 2018 – Spreadsheet that will graph 20 trials, along with the Density of Water
Purpose:Change the density of the film canister so that 97-99% of the canister is suspending under water (very SLOWLY floating from the bottom to the top of the tank).
Dunkin’ for Density 2018
Materials:
Film canisters with secure lids – one per student
small objects of different masses – pebbles, pennies, etc…
lunch tray to hold materials for each group of students
Set up hints – students prep items at their table then come up to the tank. After dunking, dry off with towels (I just drop it onto a thick folded up towel next to the tank). I have a bank of TBBs set up on the side of the classroom – students find the mass on their assigned TBBs then record results. Repeat trials. Towards the end of class, students enter all their data into the spreadsheet then I give them the volume of their film canister. Depending on the type of film canister, the volumes are about 39-41 mL. Confirm with a large graduated cylinder or water displacement tank.
For more details about this activity, please see my original post. If you have used this lesson with your students, please let me know, you can post it on my Twitter feed @MSScienceBlog
This introductory lab is a fun way to analyze data and the students look forward to finding the results each year. Who will be taller, boys or girls? Will we be taller than last year’s class? You can really analyze the data in multiple ways, you can also add the concept of min, max, mode, and range in addition the mean, you can look for trends, and you can talk about sample size, etc…
Materials
Heights Lab Introduction and directions (Google Slides)
This post highlights the eight Scientific and Engineering Practices and spotlights a few lessons related to each practice. I had this as eight separate posts but decided to consolidate for easier viewing.
For more details and examples about the Science and Engineering Practices, visit NSTA.
Tag: SEP8 – click for more lessons that cover this practice
Tag: SEP4– click for more lessons that cover this practice
Rainbow Test Tube Activity: What combination of primary colors makes the best secondary colors? How many different colors can we make using primary colors?
Adopt a City – Weather Report:How is the weather in our home city similar to weather in different parts of the US?How is it different?
Google Slide Presentation (Public) – a fun way to introduce the parts of the atom and how to determine the numbers of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Get ready to do some singing and snapping 🙂
This is one of my favorite activities from our minerals and mining unit. It takes about 1 whole class period to explain the activity, collect data, eat the cookie (& crumbs), and clean up. We discuss our results the next class and determine who made the most profit.
When determining the value of the chocolate ore, I have the students place their chocolate pieces close together in one area of the map. When they are done, I go around and circle the area of chocolate and give their chocolate a rating. They count the number of boxes their chocolate covers and enter it into their spreadsheet.
If there are crumbs attached to the chocolate, I call that ‘slag’ and it lowers the value of the chocolate ore. This leads to a great discussion afterwards when we compare the profits and talk about land use. Is it better to get out as much chocolate as you can, even if you get a lot of slag, or is it better to remove just the chocolate even though you will have less in the end? How is this similar to coal mining? Diamond mining?
Students try different techniques to extract the chocolate.Cookie blasting – extracting as much chocolate as you can in 5 minutes.
Google Slides – students will learn how to find the number of energy levels (shells) for elements in periods 1 – 8 and the number of valence electrons in their outer shells using the periodic table. Updated (Public link)
If you are looking for lesson plans that cover the following NGSS Standards, you can do a search using either tags or the search box. I have tagged all of my blog entries with the corresponding SEP.
Erlenmeyer flasks filled with red, yellow, and blue solutions of food coloring and water
5 drops of food coloring per 200 mL (25 per 1L)
3 x 25 mL Graduated Cylinders
3 x 10 mL Graduated Cylinders
pipette
beaker filled with clean water
large beaker for used water
this activity took 2x 50 minute class periods
This lab is an updated version of the classic Rainbow Lab (link) that has been around since the 80’s (Measuring Liquid Volume with a Graduated Cylinder 1988). I used this for many years with my 5th graders, and previously with my 6th graders in the early 2000’s. Now that I am teaching 6th grade again, I wanted to make it more open ended and challenging. The purpose of the original version of the lab was twofold: First – could they follow directions carefully to make a rainbow? Second – how precisely can they measure liquid volume?
For the new version of this lab, I created new objectives and assessed the students based on their problem solving, collaboration, and measuring skills.
Objectives:
Students will be able to precisely measure liquids with a graduated cylinder
Students will be able to create their own lab procedures using the given parameters to guide them
Students will create new mixtures and solutions
Students will be able to record accurate data
Students will collaborate and problem solve to achieve a common goal
Students will test, evaluate, and select the best proportions to create the colors orange, green, and purple
each group made 3-4 different combinations for each color and had to, as a group, determine which combinations of primary colors created the best secondary colors
Students will follow proper lab procedures to avoid color contamination
Students will record and analyze data from the whole grade and compare their findings to the averages from each group, what patterns or trends did they notice in the data?
Students will create their own ‘designer’ color and share it with the class
this was fun way to wrap up the activity, we had a ‘fashion’ show with each group coming up to the front of the room to showcase their newly created and named colors
if time allowed, at the end we made a rainbow with each student holding their test tube and standing next to a person who had a color similar to their own, from Red to Purple
Visual assessment – all test tubes are even and you can quickly see that each color has a volume of 25mL.
Provide each lab group with an assortment of bottles
Students will arrange the bottles from lightest to heaviest by making observations
They will record the order of the bottles and their contents with #1 as the lightest and #10 the heaviest on their handout
my groups used 9 bottles, but there is room on the handout for 10
Using the set of masses, they will estimate the mass of each bottle by holding a bottle in one hand and a mass in the other hand, recording their estimations on the handout
Procedures – Part 2
Students will transfer their estimation to the back page
Using the TBB they will record the actual masses of the bottles
Then they will rank the bottles from lightest (#1) to heaviest (#10) and compare their estimation to the actual masses. How close were the estimations to the actual masses? Did they place the bottles in the correct order?
Results
Bottle #
Mass (g)
Bottle #
Mass (g)
Bottle #
Mass (g)
1
126.9
14
281
27
192.3
2
72.9
15
336.5
28
330.9
3
29.6
16
223
29
465
4
438
17
70
30
195
5
202.1
18
36.43
31
59.1
6
166
19
185
32
168.8
7
63.1
20
88
33
33
8
301.5
21
140.1
34
100
9
224
22
49.1
35
402.5
10
610+
23
73.3
36
187.1
11
67.1
24
54.9
37
318.4
12
251.8
25
27.5
38
13
410.1
26
406
39
You can also use these bottles as part of your density unit, see my blog entry for more information.
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