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Artifact Ethics
Fourth graders examine their own values and beliefs about archaeological site protection and evaluate possible actions they might take regarding site and artifact protection.
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Floodplains in the field (with GIS)
Students measure a topographic and geologic cross-section across a floodplain by simple surveying and auguring techniques. They consider the spatial context of the field observations, use GPS measurements, and desktop GIS analyses.
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Chemical Weathering
Students measure the effect of water temperature on the rate of a chemical reaction, similar to the interaction of a weak acid and carbonate rock, using hot water and effervescent antacid tablets.
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Coffee Cooling
Students explore the factors that affect how long coffee stays hot. They develop a question and a testable hypothesis for one factor such as initial temperature or size of opening of the container. Then they design and conduct an...
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Water-Holding Capacity
Students design and conduct an experiment to compare the water-holding capacity of sand, soil, and moss. They measure the change in weight for each material after adding the same amount of water to each material.
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Hydrated Salt
Students plan, design, and carry out an experiment to determine an empirical formula for a hydrated salt X that tell students when all the water has been removed from hydrate crystals.
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Limiting Reagent
Students work in small groups with a small set of 8 nuts and 5 bolts to assemble into combinations of 1 nut: 1 bolt, and 2 nuts: 1 bolt. They explore the outcome and discuss. Then a student mixes two clear, colorless solutions together...
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Soap, Wood, and Water
Students measure the properties of two different types of soap and wood and calculate their densities. Then they predict whether or not whether or not each object would float or sink in fresh or salt water.
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Multi-Talented Electrical Energy
Young scholars explore energy conversions by demonstrating the conversion of electrical energy into light, heat, sound, and magnetic energy. Students create a simple device that converts electrical energy from batteries to heat, light,...
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Is Organic Food Worth the Extra Cost?
High schoolers calculate the amount of pesticide residue in selected foods for two
pesticides and determine if these levels are safe. They read an article about a
research study looking for metabolites of these pesticides in children....
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Some of Its Parts
Young scholars study a can opener to find the important parts that make it possible to take the lid off a can of food. They then use this information to decide what new or different subsystems could be added to make it better and...
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Acid and Rain and Its Effects
Young scholars work in groups for up to three weeks to investigate the possibility of acid rain in your area and to investigate the damage that acid rain can do to buildings, monuments, and plants. Each group prepares a report to local...
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Barometer Investigation
Students construct a barometer to use in an experiment that they design to measure the air pressure on a daily basis. These observations of air pressure allow students to determine how weather is affected when a storm is approaching and...
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Aruba Cloud Cover Measured by Satellite
Learners analyze cloud cover and to compose written conclusions to a given related scenario. They submit a letter of response and a report detailing their calculations and conclusions.
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Magnifiers
Students describe how several different objects magnify a provided sentence and decide if they are good magnifiers or not. They then write a sentence describing two properties an object must have in order to be a good magnifier.
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Insulators
Students design and carry out an investigation to test which materials is the best insulator: they predict which way heat energy flows in a system and analyze the flow of energy in a system from one point to another and from one form to...
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Hooke's Law
Students explore the relationship between the force applied to a spring and its stretch. They design and conduct an experiment to determine the stretch of spring with 15N of force without having an actual 15N mass.
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Onion Skins
Students explore the structure of a plant cell. They carefully peel a single layer of onion skin from a slice of onion and stain it with methylene blue to observe the structures inside. They use a Digiscope connected to a computer to...
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Swingers
Students investigate the motion of a swinging pendulum. They experiment with a pendulum to find out why it might swing at different speeds at different times.
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Pond-water Populations
Young scholars design and conduct and experiment on algae, for a two week period, to answer the question "In your investigation, how does changing one factor affect the growth of organisms?"
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Water-holding Capacity of Earth Materials
Students design and conduct an experiment to test their ideas about how to speed up or slow down the rate of an enzyme-catalyzed reaction. They have access to an array of physical and chemical factors that might influence enzyme...
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Web-search And PowerPoint Presentations-The Cell
Sixth graders create a PowerPoint presentation using information that they have compiled from their web search and rubric web sites, text and other applicable references. They work in pairs to complete these searches and projects.
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Respiratory System
Students identify the parts of the respiratory system and how they interact. They define vocabulary words and draw an outline of themselves and label the parts of the respiratory system. They distinguish between healthy and unhealthy...
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Discovering the Problem of Solid Waste
Students catagorize the types of garbage from going through a trash can provided by their teacher. They then chart the items on a graph and propose a solution to reduce the amount of garbage.