Solar System

The teaching theme this week is the solar system. While I'm reasonably good with the mechanics of the system, way back when I learned about it (approximately the Jurassic era), things were quite different. For one thing, Pluto was still a planet. So I'm taking some time in this little blog and organizing notes and comments about the planet and some exercises I can do with the class.

Since I have a fairly difficult class (k-2nd grade... which means some of them can read, only one can tie knots, one has ADHD, all have short attention spans) and a fairly challenging class (interested in science, grades 4-5, most have parents who read or are in the tech field) I'm going to look up science activities and factoids for the classes. Some of the factoids I don't have to memorize, since their take-home is a puzzle cube that can be rotated to form pictures of the planets (along with facts about the planets.) This isn't a problem for the older group, but my younger group won't be able to make the cubes for a variety of reasons and many of them won't be able to read the information.

So what makes a planet? It has to have enough gravity to pull it into a round shape, it has to be orbiting the sun (not another planet) and has to have "cleared its orbital path" of other objects. Everything else is something else.

Take "Plutoids," for instance. We have four: Pluto, Eris (formerly known as "Xena"), Makemake, and Haumea. However, there are other celestial objects which meets almost all those requirements but aren't "Plutoids". These include Quaoar, Sedna, (once hailed as the 10th planet), the "asteroid", Ceres, and a newly discovered body called "Orchis." Large enough that it has a rounded shape, it is now classified as a "dwarf planet."

The others are also classified as "Plutinos", a very new classification of Kuyper Body Objects -- objects that orbit twice for every three orbits of Neptunes. And then there's "Centauroids." But explaining this to a pack of elementary school students is going to be mind numbingly dull and terribly complex, so telling them that these are "in an asteroid belt far away beyond Neptune" is the best solution.

So, a game of "how far away is everything" is in order.

Millions of Miles from the Sun:

30.........................Mercury
60.........................Venus
90.........................Earth
140.......................Mars
480......................Jupiter
880......................Saturn
1780....................Uranus
2790....................Neptune
3660....................Pluto
Sedna is three times further away than Pluto!

Citizen Science -- The Moon Zoo

Citizens, scientists want YOU!

Yes, that's right -- one of the most valuable tools for any scientist is the help of informed and interested people; people who can be places where the scientist isn't and who can provide extra eyes and hands to help with research. Now a newly-launched sister site of Galaxy Zoo is looking for people who are interested in helping scientists search the surface of the Moon.

The Moon Zoo website takes advantage of lessons learned from the very successful Galaxy Zoo website. Researchers placed millions of high resolution images from the NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) on the website. After going through a series of pages explaining how to classify objects, Moon Zoo asks volunteers to classify and measure different kinds of features found on the moon's surface. Things that they are particularly interested in is the number and size of craters in each area, locating lava channels, crater chains, volcanoes, lava floods from meteor impacts, and boulders found at the edge of impact craters. Moon Zoo volunteers also help identify recent changes on the moon by comparing photos from the Apollo missions and from the LRO cameras. They also hope to locate space mission hardware -- not only the famous Apollo landing modules and Lunar rovers, but European lunar probe mission hardware and probes sent to the moon by the Chinese. To date, over a million images have been processed by volunteers -- less than 6 months' worth of photographs.

For the curious novice, the site has many pages to delight you with fascinating information -- from a page about the Moon's atmosphere (yes, it does have one but it's almost nonexistent: http://www.moonzoo.org/Lunar_Atmosphere) to the Planetary Science page (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/planets/moonpage.html), there's something for everyone here on this site.

And then there are the photos -- confirmed landing sites (http://forum.moonzoo.org/index.php?topic=174.0 -- the hardware is very small, and you have to look closely to really observe one), crater chains (http://forum.moonzoo.org/index.php?topic=107.0) , and more.

The one downside to me is that the Moon is monochromatic for the most part, and I miss some of the beautiful colors of the galaxies in Galaxy Zoo. But there's plenty of interesting photos on both sites and a real need for interested people to learn to classify objects. All in all, it's a great evening hobby for an armchair scientist!

Nuts and bolts relay race

Before class, get a set of MATCHING nuts and bolts of 3-4 different sizes.

Disassemble them.

Put 20 nuts and bolts in a bowl for each team and set out a paper plate next to the bowl. Each team member has to put together one nut and one bolt and then run back and tag the next person. First team to empty their bowl wins.

Reggie Robot variant:

Blindfold kid, have the "controller" have them pick one object out of 4 or 5 on the table.

Fender's Parts
Uh-oh Fender has lost his parts!
Rodney can repair him, but all of the parts must be found.
He needs sensors, motors, motherboard, arms, legs, bolts, nuts, screws.
Print up a label with each of the needed parts.
Put "robot parts" on a table, with only the back side of the paper showing.
Divide the class up.
Team members run up and grab a part (no turning them over) then run back to see what they have.

Static electricity

Some activities to add to the "electricity module", taken from here:
http://www.mos.org/sln/toe/staticintro.html

Best Balloon Friends Forever

Materials:

• Balloons
• String
• Felt-tip markers (permanent)
• Adhesive tape
• Wool cloth

Blow up a balloon, draw a face on it, hang it on something high. Rub a piece of wool cloth on the face side of the balloon. Walk toward the balloon. It should face you. Tell them that balloons like mad scientists!

Explain about static electricity. Ask them how we would figure out:

• How far away you can get.
  
• Does a piece of paper interfere with it?
  
• Can you make the balloon follow you round and round in a circle?
• How will it react to a second balloon.

How it works:

A balloon rubbed with a wool cloth becomes negatively charged. When a charged balloon is held close to certain items, the items become positively charged by induction and cling to the balloon. After several minutes, some of the electrons may drain off the balloon onto the items and they'll drop off the balloon and back to the table. They may then transfer their excess electrons to the table after a few minutes and once again leap toward the balloon.

Things it works with: bits of paper, styrofoam bits, loose tea, pepper. Use paper or styrofoam because few are allergic to this.


Styrofoam peas or mylar bits tubes (possible take-home)

• Set up one corner of the room in which students will come to make their static tubes in small groups.
• Give each student a clear plastic tube and end cap.
• Place all of the Styrofoam peas (better than mylar, but mylar's easy to get) inside a large container such as a bowl, shoe box, or can. Challenge the students to get about two capfulls inside their static tubes through the end that they have left uncapped. This is not always easy, because the plastic tubes take on a charge with minimal handling and will attract and repel the Styrofoam peas.
• When the students have placed their peas inside the tube, have them insert the other end cap, and remove any Styrofoam clinging to the exterior of the tube with a cupped hand. Rub the exterior of each tube with the wool cloth.
• Let the students experiment with their closed static tubes. Can they pour all of the peas from one end to the other? How can they move any peas along that seem to be stuck? Using terms they have learned through other activities, such as attract, repel, static charge, and induction, can they describe what happens when they bring a finger close to the outside of the tube?

Freeze Dance game

A new one for me, but it can be used in situations where you need a change in activity. You need a radio (suggestion was to tune to Radio Disney) or an MP3 player (more control) and speakers. Start the music and have them do different kinds of dances (dance like a chicken, dance like a robot, dance like a bear, dance like a cat, dance like a moose, dance like a worm (etc))... and they freeze when you pause the music.

If they need to work off energy, tell them "fastdance in one spot!" and let them wear themselves out.

A note on music: Use music without any words. Disco music works well, as does anything peppy.

'quick notes: classroom games for Science Teachers

Two quick classroom games -- one for the younger set, one for the older set
Simon Says variant -- use commands relating to robots or any other science activity:

Space:
* "walk on the moon"
* "fly a spaceship"
* "float in the space lab"

Robots:
* "crank up your robot"
* "open robot claw"
* "robot spin"
* "robot wave arms"

Squiggle balls can provide interesting lessons in graphing and physics and randomness, particularly when talking about "Random Walks". Case in point -- set off a squiggle ball for each group and have them record its position at regular intervals (10 seconds... longer times for younger students). Compare plots.