Eric Freeman

Eric Freeman
This is my boy and me!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Inquiry Experiment Implementation:

This week I chose to be brave and make an inquiry experiment for the youngest of our audiences. I have always worked with grades 4,5, and 6, so this was particularly interesting for me. I had a kindergarten student I know, as it is summer, do the "Dancing Spaghetti" experiment. The student helped me make a solution of water, vinegar, and baking soda. We then placed spaghetti in the solution and watched it go up as it gathered carbon dioxide, and down as the carbon dioxide was released. My student recognized that baking soda looked similar to powdered sugar, so we made another solution using powdered sugar as our variable. My kindergartner had a great time, and was very engaged. He made the connection to the bubbles floating with a bubble bath. We also discussed the use of water wings while out at the lake. The ideas of density and mass were introduced. I am in assumption that this young man will use this experiment as prior knowledge for experiments dealing with mass and density in the future.

P.S. I had only rounded up one student to complete this experiment with due to the summer vacation, no summer school at this time, and it being professional development week for teachers. Thanks for your understanding.

2 comments:

  1. This does sound like a fun activity! I feel your pain about trying to round up a group of kids. I was fortunate enough to have a cousin and two of her friends who wanted to go to the zoo =)

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  2. I was only able to get 4 students so don't feel bad. It sounds like it was a fun activity for your student either way. Hopefully you both took something away from the lesson and it's something you can reflect on & use in your future classes.

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