Mrs. Stocker's Legendary Mt. St. Helens Story!

Each year during our volcano study Mrs. Stocker visits 2nd grade to share her story on how she "survived the eruption of Mt. St. Helens!"  It's so fun for the students to hear from someone with first hand experience about an eruption that happened 300 miles away from her.  It goes to show just how powerful a volcanic eruption can be!  Mrs. Stocker is also a great story teller who completely pulls the kids in with her details.  Thank you so much Mrs. Stocker!  We love your visits!

We also got our volcanoes painted yesterday with our base color.  The students have really been enjoying volcano construction!

Rainbow in a Jar

Our most recent science unit focused on matter.  We learned about the states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas.  This experiment focuses on density, which is a hard concept for young students to understand.  We talked about it as the amount of atoms that are packed into a given volume.  The more atoms packed in, the more dense.

To experiment with this concept we attempted a rainbow in a jar.  We layered liquids based on their density.  This is a tricky experiment because the least dense layer, rubbing alcohol, is very touchy!
We tried our best!  The students also brought home the directions, and this would be a fun experiment to try at home!

Final Engineering Project: Egg Drop

In our engineering unit, we've learned that engineers need to use creative ideas to build or take things apart.  They also need to be great problem solvers who are willing to try things in a new way if they don't work the first time.

In order to put these skills to use, the students built an egg drop box with a few limited supplies.  Each group was given a shoe box filled with 1 toilet paper tube, 5 cotton balls, 1 styrofoam cup, 2 paper towels, 2 popsicle sticks, 2 straws, 2 pipe cleaners, and a roll of masking tape. 

On day 1 the students made their box without the egg.  They had to make some assumptions on how the egg would fit into their design. On day 2, the students were given the egg and many groups had to problem solve a new design based on whether or not the egg fit into their original design.

This project also gave the students another chance to collaborate within a partnership or group, which at times can be challenging.

The goal was to keep the egg safe for 3 different heights of dropping.  We dropped off a desk, off the shelves in the library, and outside on the stairs by the little park.

 The students then reflected on why they think their eggs survived the fall or didn't.  We focused on the fact that if our eggs didn't survive, it's not a failure, but rather it's just one idea that would need further work.  This was a fun project!

The Spaghetti Noodle Tower Challenge

We've started our engineering unit in 2nd grade.  We learned that engineers design and build things to solve problems.  They use creative and innovative ideas.  We've also learned that there are many types of engineers.  Some may create new things, some take things apart to see how they work, and others study why things don't work.

Our first task was to make a spaghetti tower using only 30 noodles and 25 marshmallows.  The students were placed in groups of 3, and they had two science class periods to work.  The goal was to build the tallest standing structure.  Once the students got their supplies they got right to work with enthusiasm. Groups were sketching out ideas they thought might work and tried to apply their design to their tower.

Groups soon found that this was more challenging than they anticipated.  Spaghetti noodles are not strong building supplies and marshmallows are gooey.  Several groups had to design and redesign.  This can lead to frustration, and how the groups handled this frustration definitely impacted their outcome.

On the third day we measured our towers and discussed the process.  Every group ended with a standing tower which is a success!  I asked the students what they found surprising about the process.  They agreed that the supplies were not easy to work with.  They said that it was frustrating when their ideas didn't work.  They were surprised how difficult it was to translate their design on paper to the noodles and marshmallows.  Having 3 voices in a group was challenging because there were so many ideas to work through.  I asked the class how this relates to engineering, and they could see that engineers may have to try their ideas and design many times before it works.

I asked the class how cooperation is important to this project.  They agreed that keeping a positive attitude was so important.  Groups that had a more difficult time listening to each other's ideas were not as successful in the end.  Some students said they thought it would be easier to just do this project by themselves so they didn't have to try anybody else's ideas.  Other students said that working alone wouldn't be the best strategy because you may run out of ideas when it wasn't working.

This is a fun project with so many great lessons!

Scientific Method Experiment 2

The second experiment we did to practice making a hypothesis, carrying out an experiment, and analyzing the results was "Growing Gummy Bears."  We asked the question: "What liquid will make our gummy bears grow the most?"  We tried out 4 different possibilities: plain water, sugar water, vinegar water, and lemon water.  We weighed and measured each gummy bear before and after so we could be as clear as possible on our results.   Most students predicted that the gummy bear in the sugar water would grow the most.  The reasoning the students gave was that gummy bears are made of sugar, and sugar water would make them grow fast. We were surprised to see that the gummy bears in the vinegar and lemon water become blobs of gelatin overnight! We concluded that the gummy bear in the plain water grew the most.  Although the bear in the vinegar weighed in with the most mass, it was very difficult to decipher how much of that weight was just from additional water poured on the scale because it was so hard to weigh that blob!  The bear in the lemon water grew the least, and there was just not much left of that gummy bear to measure! This was a fun experiment, and we talked about how the students could try it at home with any types of liquid they liked!  If anyone tries this at home, report back your results!

Scientific Method Experiment 1

In the last few weeks the students have been learning about the scientific method.  We've discussed how scientists are curious about something, they ask questions, do research, form a hypothesis, and carry out an experiment to see if their hypothesis is correct.

We tried out the scientific method with "The Great Banana Experiment."  We asked the question: "How can we keep bananas fresher longer?"  We tried 3 methods: one banana was placed in a sealed plastic bag, another had plastic wrap wrapped around the stem, and the third banana was placed in the fridge.

The class was pretty split in their hypotheses. We recorded our observations for a few days and ultimately concluded that the banana in the sealed plastic bag held up the best.  The banana in the fridge turned brown very quickly.  Once peeled, the banana in the plastic bag looked very similar to the banana that had plastic wrap around the stem.  They both still looked yellow. The banana from the fridge had many dark brown spots once peeled.