Catching up after a long week!

Just wanted to catch folks up on the learning happening in science class over the last week and give you a glimpse into where we are headed in all grade levels.  Last week was a very busy week coming off the heels of grades 4 and 5's outdoor ed experience at Shaw Nature Reserve, Back to School curriculum night, and our first tree climbing event on Friday.


Grade 4 Science
Our main focus right now is measuring length, mass, and volume in metric.  Last week students practiced using both graduated cylinders and triple-beam balances to determine the mass of liquids.  Students are gaining competency using the tools of scientific investigations and gaining confidence in their measurements.

Grade 4 students will take an assessment this week to check for understanding around metric measurements and then transition these skills to look at the amount of available freshwater on the planet as we begin to unpack our unifying, year-long theme of WATER.


Grades 5 and 6 Science
Students spent much of last week working on properly identifying variables as independent (the variable the scientist intentionally manipulates or changes), the dependent (the variable that might respond to changes in the independent variable... i.e. the data that will be observed or measured during the experiment) and controls (elements that will remain the same throughout the experiment).

In addition, students are building their knowledge in the area of graphing.  We started by creating bar graphs and then sharing our work to get group feedback and guidance on improvements.  They then began looking at line graphs (both single and multiple line graphs) as a means to show continuous data and data that changes over time. After we solidify our thinking around graphing we will take a close look at data analysis this week.

Students will be assessed later this week in the areas of writing hypotheses, identifying variables, creating graphs, and data analysis.  All of this work around variables and graphing is the foundational work of experimental design.

After our assessment, grades 5 and 6 students will begin their first independent experiments using campus bird feeders as a focus.  Today, the St. Louis Audubon Society joined us to teach the students the basics to bird identification strategies.


Grade 5 MakerSpace - Prairie Plot and Rain Garden installation

As part of a larger campus improvement plan, Grade 5 students are beginning to unpack what information they will need to install a native Missouri prairie plot and rain garden.  These campus features will assist with long-term data collection efforts in science via our campus bird feeder experiments and pollinator investigations.  In MakerSpace, we began to look at what do we need to know to build a prairie plot and what tools would we need to do the installation.  Next, the students will examine the campus grounds and make informed decisions on where the best location for these features exists.


Grade 6 MakerSpace - Design Challenge
Our original plan for this week in MakerSpace was to have a visitor join us with his drone to take aerial photos of the campus to help guide our campus installation projects.  Unfortunately, not only did he crash and break his drone the day before the flight, but it was also raining.  D'oh!

Our rainy day back-up was a challenge that seemed simple at first, but uncovered some of the challenges that engineers and builders face in real-life.  Their challenge was to move a ball from one side of the room to the other without touching the ball.  The students were divided into two teams and given 30 minutes to complete the task.  At first students thought that was too much time.  We ended up having to spend an extra hour in MakerSpace to complete the build.  Students ran into issues related to their starting potential energy, design ideas, and team dynamics.  One group was even to calculate the speed their ball was moving as it traveled across their design. Through a powerful debriefing exercise the group was able to identify areas of improvement for future builds and cooperative projects.

Tree Climbing - Grades 4-5-6

Our first tree climb of the year was a strictly recreational, skill-building tree climb. It was an introductory climb for the students to get used to being in a harness, using the climbing system, and gaining some valuable experience with climbing in general.  We were joined by Guy Mott, owner of Adventure Tree, who assisted myself and the students with their initial climb.  In addition to the typical tree climbing experience, we also set-up several other climbing elements that the students could challenge themselves on, including a belayed free-climb (up the "rickety ladder", ascending a knotted rope, and finishing the climb by using just the tree branches) and a tree-to-tree traverse (the student starts in one tree and ends up in another!)

I was blown away by the students climbing abilities and overall comfort using the climbing system.   They really did a fantastic job.  We will climb several times throughout the school year, but when we climb next we will be doing it as a means to conduct science... whether that is for tree canopy data collection or exploring principles of force and motion.

Thank you to all the parents who came by and took photos or gave the kids words of encouragement!