Engage students in thoughtful activities about the form and function of a most remarkable machine, their own body. Students build mechanical models to demonstrate how muscles power human movement, and develop an appreciation for the design and coordination of the body.
Students learn fundamental ideas of chemistry: mixture, solution, concentration, saturation and reaction. Students are also introduced to the concept that all matter is made up of atoms and that atoms combine to form molecules.
Levers and Pulleys
Students grapple with the idea that understanding simple machines, and what they reveal about the relationships between effort and the work produced is essential to understand-ing complex machines. Students create two simple machines: levers and pulleys.
This hands-on unit helps students become familiar with magnifiers and introduces them to microscopic organisms. Students handle a variety of apparatus such as droppers, slides and coverslips. They develop detailed observation skills and recordkeeping skills in both words and drawings.
Motion & Design
Student teams create vehicles from K'NEX building pieces and use them to explore effects of force, friction, and wind resistance on distance and speed.
Students record daily observations about time and position of sunrise and sunset, moon shape, daytime visibility and elevation. Scale models of the solar system dramatize its massive distances and it's planets' relative sizes. Topics include seasons, moon phases, tides and celestial navigation.
You and Your Body
Your class will examine the skeletal system, identifying major bones and joints, replicate the arm's muscle coordination and measure reaction time, model the pumping action of the heart, calculate lung capacity and investigate respiration.