Saturday, July 18, 2009

Science Experiments For 2009-2010

We're doing at least one experiment per week. While many will coincide with our Combo-books/lapbooks, not necessarily. Most of the time we'll just be progressing through common types of science (earth studies, physics, astronomy, etc.) This will teach the kids to study, collect and report findings as well as understanding the scientific process.

Now, as a former scientist myself, I can tell you adults in the field use a 13 step scientific process -

  1. Observe
  2. Classify
  3. Measure
  4. Sequence Order
  5. Infer
  6. Predict
  7. Communicate
  8. Investigate
  9. Control
  10. Hypotheses
  11. Interpreting
  12. Defining
  13. Formulating

For kids we shorten the process to only 5 steps:

  1. Ask Questions
  2. Observe
  3. Compare
  4. Contrast
  5. Estimate

Using this process we'll perform the following experiments this coming year

Astronomy:

  1. The Sun and Us
  2. How Radar Works: Seeing inside a closed box
  3. Day & Night Part 1: Simulating Day and Night
  4. Day & Night Part 2: The differences between Day and Night
  5. The Shape of the Earth
  6. The Tides
  7. Creating an Eclipse
  8. Shadow Lines
  9. Equinox
  10. Star Tracker
  11. Shrinking Sun
  12. Sun Spots
  13. Sunset in a box
  14. Solar Oven
  15. Different Moons (2 parts understand the moon's phases and observing them)
  16. Your Weight On The Moon
  17. Reflective & Refractive Telescope
  18. Making a Parallax
  19. Mapping the Night Sky
  20. Your Age on Other Planets
  21. Green House Effect
  22. Rocket Launch
  23. Satellites Part 1: Simulating Satellites
  24. Satellites Part 2:Orbiting Satellites
  25. Satellites Part 3: Signals & Satellites

Forces & Waves:

  1. Splitting Light
  2. Angled Light
  3. Centrifugal Force
  4. The Sun's Gravity Part 1: Demonstrating the pull of gravity
  5. The Sun's Gravit Part 2: How a spacecraft can escape gravity to fly in space
  6. Escaping Gravity
  7. Watch Inertia
  8. A Pendulum
  9. Pull It Up: Using Levers
  10. Turn It Up: Sound Amplification
  11. Tinkling: See how sound vibrates
  12. Echo, Echo
  13. Water & Light Waves
  14. Shadow Drawing
  15. Rainbow Light
  16. Refraction & Reflection
  17. Turning to White - see how many colors make up white
  18. Falling Over: Energy Transference
  19. Bounce: Energy Transference part 2
  20. The Swing of Things: Every Action has a Equal Reaction
  21. Lifting Higher: Sideways Force
  22. Jumping Up: Static Electricity
  23. Ions in Action
  24. Lemon Batteries
  25. Magnetic Field
  26. Double Magnetism
  27. The Amazing Jumping Man: Relationship between electricity and magnets
  28. Jar Magnet

Earth Science:

  1. Salinity of the Oceans
  2. Classifying Living Things
  3. Breathing Plants: How plants obtain nutrients from the soil
  4. Nocturnal Plants
  5. Mini Greenhouse
  6. Classifying Fruits & Vegetables
  7. When is a Fruit a Berry
  8. Making a Compost Bin
  9. Tree & Plant Encyclopedia
  10. Bird Encyclopedia
  11. How does a Boat Float (It's full of air) Using a jar cap to show how a submarine floats or sinks.
  12. High Tides: Water Volume

Anatomy & Physiology:

  1. Balloon Lungs
  2. At Home Stethoscope

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