This lesson was super fun. The best yet. I was a little nervous in that I waited til the deadline to do it and that we were a little pressed for time. But my li'l sixth graders rocked it! I modified it a little (simplified a couple of steps and didn't do Part E with the capillary tubes). But they really enjoyed sticking the rulers together and floating the paper clips. I have just glanced through the write ups, but from conversations during the experiment, they really seemed to be grasping the concepts of both adhesion and cohesion. Yayyy us!
Fri, 11/30/2012 - 17:57
Some work with basic atomic structure and organization. The morning of we did some vocab work on adhesion/cohesion. Other than that not a lot. The previous TSI labs were pretty helpful. They're starting to think and work like scientists :)
Tue, 12/18/2012 - 15:35
Hey Dan. My 8th graders loved these activities. They were so amazed by the floating paper clips. Many of my students had already seen something on Youtube that showed them how to use another paper clip to make a paper clip float. All of a sudden we had a competition in my classroom who could float a paper clip without using any other tools. The kids had so much fun! :)
Wed, 12/19/2012 - 11:52
I agree with all of you. This was super fun and educational! I had my two honors classes do it informally one day when their classmates were on a fieldtrip. My general physical science classes got the whole treatment and learned a lot. I loved hearing them talking about adhesion and cohesion. Never underestimate the power of activities that can seem so simple to us, but are very beneficial to the students!
Wed, 11/28/2012 - 21:50
I agree with you that these lab stations were really a fun way to learn and remember these concepts. How did you prep these activities with 6th graders?