 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
WEEK of December 6, 2004 |
|||
Water, Water Everywhere by Jeffrey Stanley Second grade head teachers Dawn Wheatley and Laura Hulbert spent the fall semester immersed in water. The water study, an annual event at BFS for over a decade, is a semester-long unit that begins in September with basics like the fact that water can take three forms (solid, liquid, gas) and can be transformed from one form to another (freezing, condensation, evaporation). Students are then introduced to the scientific method, in which they ask a question, make a prediction, perform an experiment and record the results. “The emphasis is on thinking like a scientist,” said Hulbert, “beginning with a question you’d like to find the answer to, and then loosely following the scientific procedure: designing the experiment, making a prediction and observing for results.” In one series of experiments designed to explore capillary action, students taped strips of coffee filter paper to the wall and placed the bottom ends of the paper into cups of water. “Before their very eyes, accompanied by cries of amazement, the water proceeded up to the top of the filter paper,” Hulbert said. “Children were then asked to pick a different strip—terrycloth, paper bag, Xerox paper, or gauze—and do a comparison test. We were aiming to find a material that worked as well as, or better, than the filter paper. One child suggested that we should try a hot water vs. cold water run, reasoning that if molecules move faster in hot water, then it should travel upwards faster on the coffee filter. We tried it and discovered he was right.” Hulbert was pleased to hear from parents that some eager students continued their experimenting at home to see how water climbed up various materials.
“They used their observations to take them past their initial thinking into new questions. What they came away with was not a set of concrete answers, but an excitement about a host of interesting questions,” she said. In December the unit concluded with the ocean animal study. “Each child chooses an ocean animal that lives at the New York Aquarium to study,” explained Wheatley. Students research the animal at school, then “we take a trip there [see photos] and children observe their animal and learn interesting facts about what the animals look like, what they eat, how they take care of their young, and how they protect themselves.” Students use their findings to create written reports taking one of three forms: a question and answer book, a day in the life of book, or a fact or fable book. “Like many projects the research can be challenging, but the end result is a piece of writing that the child is often quite proud of. The children also very much enjoy reading each other’s reports, which for a while become part of the classroom library.” Wheatley said the biggest challenge for the unit is keeping the students aware that they’re doing research and not just fooling around. “Playing with water can be lots of fun and we need to remind students to focus on the concepts. This can sometimes be difficult as water with red food coloring suddenly sloshes onto the rug or one’s observation sheet becomes soaked and unreadable because of all the water on the table.” In the end, students get to make big paper models of their animals. As Wheatley said, “The animal is painted, stuffed, and hung from the ceiling in the classroom, turning it into a bit of an aquarium—minus the water.”
|
||||
|
home
| site map |
contact BFS
|
||||
