Exploring Our Fluid Earth

This activity was great because the students had to feel like they were wet with imagining to initiate the activity and how the properties of water are discovered by predicting and using waterdrops on coins. The students were fully engrossed so we modified the process to include me helping them fill the petri dishes and using the capillary tubes as a demo rather than individual projects for the sake of time. One area of frustration was teaching the five I's while still learning the meanings. It helped for me to have them written on the board and then refer to them over and over.

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This was a real struggle for some of my 5th graders, but we made it through!

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I found this lab a little difficult. My students were patient and went through the process but I didn't feel like they were very enthused about the content. Maybe they just need more practice using their new terms and applying the new learning. perhaps I also need more practice with them. Im not sure how much this benefits my 6th graders as I don't have alot of time to spend continuing the dialogue. I too would be curious to find out if anyone was very successful.

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Fan, the form you posted for the pre and post assessments for PDE3 asks for our pre assessment answers. I don't think I have a copy of the original I turned in to you folks at the follow up session. Would you be able to send a copy?

We really enjoyed this activity as a class. They were surprised at the actual number of drops vs the predictions and it was fun to do and really helped grasp the concept of cohesion and adhesion....I did however use an idea of adhesion...adhesive tape like a band-aid...sticks to something...and that connection was a little bit confusing to them with regards to water...i was just trying to use a familiar word/product that they'd know to explain the word adhesion...but then making the link from bandaid to water was a stretch. I'm not sure i'd use that again.

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Lisa has a progress list of things she has completed in her My Account section, but I my "My Account" does not have the progress list and doesn't look exactly like hers.

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I was very apprehensive of trying this activity due to the complex nature of metacognition (I have 7th graders). In the end, it went better than expected, although I don't think my students fully grasp what metacognition is and how it's useful in their lives. They were receptive to learning about the 5 phases and semi-interested in how they related to the traditional scientific method. The most interesting part for me was having them answer the last question in the followup where they had to respond to the writing prompt.

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Here it is - finally :/

My students enjoyed this experiment and some altered the activity to observe different outcomes (like smoke from the battery)

Loved this activity. Super engaging.