Summer SAVY 2017, Session 5/Day 1- What’s the Matter? (Rising 1st)

Posted by morganr1 on Monday, July 17, 2017 in SAVY.

Dear parents:

Today was a wonderful first day in our What’s the Matter course! I was pleasantly surprised to welcome back three previous students to this session. We began our morning with a concept map to show what students knew about matter. This concept map helps guide our instruction and differentiation in this course study of matter. Next, students thought about the concept of change.

Our young scientists shared their definition of change and gave examples of change. Some of the examples were weather, attitudes and moods, human growth, rearranging rooms, renovating a home, painting a home or changing wall paper, seasons, etc. We began a concept map on change. As we journey through our study of matter, we will look at the overarching generalizations of change such as: change is everywhere, change relates to time, change can be natural or manmade, and change may be random or predictable. As we move through our study of matter we will look to understand the relationships between time and matter.

Next, students were asked to define a scientist, and what scientists do. After students shared their perspectives regarding those questions, we read a book called “What is a Scientist?” and added new information to our Frayer’s model chart about scientists. A Frayer’s model has four parts to it: Definition, What do scientists do? Examples, and Nonexamples. This type of model helps students really connect with the concept with a strong understanding of what the topic is and is not. Students then set up their Science Norebooks and learned about the Scientific Wheel of Investigation and Reasoning. This is very much like the Scientific Process, but it is set up as a repeating cycle. The steps in order of process are: Make Observations, Ask Questions, Learn More, Design and Conduct the Experiment, Create Meaning and Tell Others What Was Found.

We began learning about how to make observations like a scientist (Step One in the Wheel), with a hands-on experiment called “Clear Blue Sea”. In this observation experiment, students practiced recording information in their science notebooks as they looked at a plastic bottle that was 2/3 of the way filled with blue water and 1/3 of the way filled with oil. Students got to rock and shake the bottles to observe what happened. They really enjoyed this activity. Their comments were priceless. Tomorrow, students will be looking forward to seeing if the bottles look the same (changed back to the original way they were before they shook the ingredients up), and try to make meaning out of why the liquids didn’t stay combined! More experiments and exploration tomorrow!

Mrs. Tyson