Finding hands-on activities for my students in science has been joyful and fun! My students are actively engaged with the learning and are enjoying the process of exploring new topics! I found some exciting resources that include the objective for learning along with vocabulary cards for a word wall, a beginning activity that hooks students' attention, a PowerPoint or Google slides lesson that pairs with materials (worksheets) where students are cutting out papers, writing down definitions and examples then gluing them in their science journals, then 4 input stations where students read a short article and respond to questions, watch a short video and respond, research from a short article and respond to questions and explore something hands-on and respond to questions, then 4 output stations where students organize information, write to a few prompts, assess themselves (diagnostic questions), illustrate something related to the topic and a challenge it station where they can take their learning a bit deeper. Also included is an engaging homework assignment and a lab where students explore and make discoveries then a quiz and a selection of projects where students can choose. For physical and chemical changes, I found a lab where students make soap and practice measuring, observing measurements, practice different roles within their groups while conducting the lab and noticing the physical changes from the chemical changes.
Before leading this lab, I got together the day before with a few other teachers to work out the details and conduct the lab. This helped me think through the steps, what I needed to have ready for my students and figure out how much time each step would take. I am so grateful for those who helped me put this together and received great advice from our Curriculum Coordinator, Susan and high school science teacher, Mike!
To begin this lab, we first went over how to measure so that the liquid dip in the middle of the beaker is at the measure line. We also went over the job roles in the group; 2 students to measure (one down at eye level and the other pouring), one captain who reads out the directions and giving explanations of what to do and a scribe who is writing out the responses that others can copy from later.
After reading through the experiment and deciding roles, students could begin to walk through the lab. Their first step was to measure out the 100 mL of oil and place half a crayon in it for color then heat it on the hot plate to 75 degrees Celsius. One student was taking the temperature by holding the thermometer in the center of the liquid then would take the thermometer out when it stopped climbing. One person stirred the oil and crayon as the crayon melted. This was a physical change and now, students needed to wait for the oil and crayon to cool to 55 degrees Celsius.
When the oil and crayon were at 75 degrees Celsius, the beaker was removed from the hot plate and the heat turned off. Then two students went to measure the water in a graduated cylinder. Two other students went to measure the lye or sodium hydroxide into another graduated cylinder. The water was poured into an Erlenmeyer flask then the sodium hydroxide was poured into the water and stirred until dissolved. Students noticed the chemical change as the temperature quickly increased almost to the point of boiling water and condensation arose on the outside of the glass flask. They now needed to watch the temperature until it lowered to 40 degrees Celsius.
When the two temperatures were lowered, the sodium hydroxide mixture was poured into the crayon mixture and stirred until it reached the consistency of honey. Then it was poured into a paper cup and placed in a safe place.
The next day, students came in and we used a Logger Probe to check the pH levels of their soap after 24 hours. We also did this on Thursday and students have written down the results so far. We did not have school yesterday because of Good Friday and Monday is also a holiday so we will check the pH again on Tuesday morning. Then, students will create a graph from their results and reflect on their hypothesis written at the beginning of the lab and answer questions based on their results.
Teaching science has been exciting and full of challenges as science, particularly biology, was not a something I enjoyed while in school. I am continuing to grow as a science teacher and love exploring all the different ways students can be actively engaged while learning certain topics.
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