Last year, teachers and students fought through unexpected hurdles of shortened school days and virtual learning. While making sure to cover ELA and mathematics concepts thoroughly, science fell by the wayside. This year is critical to reignite our students' passion for science, making up for what may have been lost in previous years as well as covering current content.
As we pave the way forward, I have no doubt that having these manipulatives will allow students to study these concepts in a way that would be impossible through reading or a screen alone. Hands-on activities will allow students to experience the push and pull of magnets while exploring force and motion content. In addition, being able to design their own experiments, record data, and evaluate their findings directly tie into the scientific method through our required standards! The makers of these kits stated that students will develop skills in:
• Planning and conducting an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object
• Making observations and/or measurements of an object’s motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future motion
• Asking questions to determine cause-and-effect relationships of magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other
• Defining a simple design problem that can be solved by applying scientific ideas about magnets
• Representing data in tables and graphs to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season
• Obtaining and combining information to describe climates in different regions of the world
• Making a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impact of a weather-related hazard
• Constructing an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive
About my class
Last year, teachers and students fought through unexpected hurdles of shortened school days and virtual learning. While making sure to cover ELA and mathematics concepts thoroughly, science fell by the wayside. This year is critical to reignite our students' passion for science, making up for what may have been lost in previous years as well as covering current content.
As we pave the way forward, I have no doubt that having these manipulatives will allow students to study these concepts in a way that would be impossible through reading or a screen alone. Hands-on activities will allow students to experience the push and pull of magnets while exploring force and motion content. In addition, being able to design their own experiments, record data, and evaluate their findings directly tie into the scientific method through our required standards! The makers of these kits stated that students will develop skills in:
• Planning and conducting an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on the motion of an object
• Making observations and/or measurements of an object’s motion to provide evidence that a pattern can be used to predict future motion
• Asking questions to determine cause-and-effect relationships of magnetic interactions between two objects not in contact with each other
• Defining a simple design problem that can be solved by applying scientific ideas about magnets
• Representing data in tables and graphs to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season
• Obtaining and combining information to describe climates in different regions of the world
• Making a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impact of a weather-related hazard
• Constructing an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive