Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 1) – What’s the Matter?
Hi parents. Our first day of SAVY, What’s the Matter? was packed with wondering, curiosity, questioning, pondering, hypothesizing, experimenting, observation, inferencing, and analyzing as we donned our lab coats and took on the persona of being scientists! We began our day with time spent getting to know each other’s interests and passions by sharing a few of our favorite things, such as books, animals, tv shows or movies, games or toys, pets, etc.
Students then moved into creating concept maps to show their current understanding of matter. This background knowledge will help guide my next steps for curriculum instruction with differentiation for each student. After finishing concept maps, we began a discussion about what a scientist does and how students would see themselves as scientists. Students then set up their lab journals and began creating an entry with a picture of themselves as scientists.
We also discussed the concept of change and what students thought that it looked like. I was so spellbound by ideas such as, change is when something happens and something different is the result, such as trimming long pants into shorter pants. The more we thought about change, the more insightful students became with their ideas. The overarching question of What’s the Matter? is, what is change?, and realizing that change is everywhere, it relates to time, it can be natural or manmade, and it can be random or predictable.
After this discussion, we launched our first matter lab experiment. Students got an opportunity to explore the changes that happen when vegetable oil is added to water and then an ice cube with blue food-coloring embedded in it is added as a last step. Students learned how to make notations in their science journal, carefully observed and noted changes, and made conclusions. Students also thought about and recorded unanswered questions, such “Why does the oil separate from the water, but the food coloring mixes with water?”
Students then got to make their own personal lab coats to be used throughout our SAVY time together over the next 5 weeks. We closed with a wrap-up of our conclusions for the day and what we might ponder for the week ahead until we meet again next Saturday. I can’t wait to see what develops next week as we meet for week two!
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