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.

magic and science

magic

magic - trick with water and ice. How did I do that?
Trick with predicting a card. How did I do that?
Magic and science.
disappearing rabbit trick. Make something a kid has disappear. have them bark like a dog. Clap.
How does this work?
The trick thumb. Make a piece of paper vanish. Make a handkerchief appear.
kid lie on floor, hold arms over head, explain sensation. slowly lower kid's arms... tell me to stop when you think it will touch the floor.

Magic floating arm.
hydrophobic sand (can do with matches)... you can use baby powder to do this at hime.

3 cup monte with hydrophilic gel. Dissect a diaper.

Ninja popsicle sticks
====
Pick a number, any two digit number will do.

Add the two digits together and then subtract the total from the original number.

The result will always be a multiple of nine, so adding the digits of your answer will always result in the number nine.

38=11=27/3(first number)=9
96=15=81/8=9
This trick begins with a stacked deck! Separate the Aces and Kings from an ordinary poker deck. Place the 4 Aces on top of the other cards. Place the Kings on top of the Aces. Kings are now uppermost in the deck.

Find a volunteer and say something like: "You look like you can deal out a mean hand of cards! Please take this pack and deal out two piles, alternating cards."

Let them deal about half of the deck and then say: "You may stop anytime you wish". Take the undealt deck of cards and place them aside.

Say to your volunteer: "Now, please pick up one of those two piles and deal it into two smaller piles. Do the same with the other pile so that we will end up with 4 piles of cards."
At this point there will be a king on the top of every deck.

"Turn up the top of any pile. Oh....that's a king. Turn over another - another king! Coincidence. Yet another and another."

Once the volunteer has turned up all 4 kings discard them.

"Anyone here a poker player? What beats four kings? Why.....four ACES, right"

Make some magical passes of your hand over the four piles. Turn up the top card of each pile to reveal ACES

Static Electricity experiments

------------------ static electricity
* A balloon
* A clean head of hair
* Some tiny bits of torn up newspaper
* A sheet of aluminum foil about 1 foot long
* A wool sweater or sock
* A sheet of wax paper about 1 foot long
* A sheet of cellophane wrap about 1 foot long

Begin by blowing up the balloon and rubbing it on your head. What happens to your hair? Now lay the bits of paper out on a table in front of you. Bring the balloon near, but don't actually touch the paper. What happens?

Straw Exercise
Carefully tear one end of the paper and slide about one inch of the straw out of the paper. Rub the straw in and out of the paper for 5-10 seconds. Remove the paper and lay it on the table while hoding one end of the straw with your fingertips. Like a wand, lower the straw and hold it next to the paper, then raise the straw. What does the paper do?

taste

What's your favorite food?
* sweet
* sour
* salty
* bitter
Have counter count how many people like each.

1. What are the four familiar tastes?
   
2. What part of the body do we use to taste?
3. Fifth flavor, "Umami." Cheese is an example of Umami.
4. other things about food -- spicy, temperature, color, smell
   

Food you absolutly hate. What do you hate about it?
Have counter count qualities.

Going to be looking at taste. Will be using flavors on a cotton swab... don't mix and don't share.
Have four students demo how the taste test is done and how it's mapped. These become helpers at stations.

Can you taste the same thing in all areas of the tongue? Sweet, salty, sour, bitter. Bumps on tongue are taste buds and some get replaced every 24 hours! It was once thought that you could taste things only in one area. Is this true?

3. Using your map, point to the places on your tongue where you would most likely taste a candy bar, potato chips, lemon juice, and a grapefruit peel.

bitter medicine -- people spit it out. If you put sugar in, is the bitter still there? Why would they tell us to put aspirin on the front of the tongue before swallowing it?

1. What does the sense of taste teach you about the world we live in?
   
2. How does taste help us select and enjoy food?
3. What would happen to you without the sense of taste?
   

food coloring... paint your tongue front with blue food coloring. Place wax paper on tip of tongue. Count the number of unstained circles. the more of those you have the more fungiform tastebuds you have. This is why some people can't eat certain foods. Changes as you get older.

1. Describe how the sense of taste and the sense of smell are related.
   
2. What are some things that should not be tasted

Perfumes (which is which?) artificial flavor.

Smell-a-drink (coke and pepsi and diet coke) Which is which?
making gum drops?

Nose pinch and blindfolded smell of coke and pepsi and diet coke.

Forces

note: if class is small, divide into stations. For largest class, demonstrations. Bring tops.

Forces make stopped objects move and moving objects stop.
Have two volunteers jump. What made them come down? What made them go up (prompt for muscles)? Drop pencil. What made it fall?
Catapult... what made ball fly?
bouncing ball... what happens when it bounces? bounce clay. Now what do you think happens? Push in ball -- what happens to surface? Push in clay? How does ball act like muscles?

"Center of gravity"... what does that sound like? Place where things balance.
Put hat and string on someone's head. have them stand with legs apart. Where is center of gravity? Now stand on one leg. Where is it?
partner control -- have two kids. Ones sits on chair other puts thumb against first one's forehead. try to stand up. What happened with center of gravity?
have child prove they can bend to pick up pencil. Now, stand with toes to wall. Take 3 toe-heel steps back. pick up a pencil (they can't). What happened with center of gravity when you stick your hips way out?
Balance an improbable object with pencils (ball of clay on fork) How did that change center of gravity?

gyroscopes and tops -- precession causes motion in a circle. What makes a good top? How could I turn clay into top?
Gyroscope and bike wheel
coke bottle demo
Hot wheels roller coaster (but only use kids who have earned tokens)
Penny inside a balloon -- spinning things change their behavior. Throw balloon with spinning penny. What happened?

Dry Ice

Set up:

Make sure there's some space between kids, have them work in pairs.
Make sure there's warm water around (pitcher of water)
If you have a chance, put a spoon in the warm water while you take roll, etc.

Get attention of kids, give them rules, introduce yourself.

explain that we are going to play with something that most kids never get to touch. Drop dry ice (use spoon) in a glass of water, and sip it as it foams. Tell them that at the end they will get to try the same kind of drink for themselves. Pour some of the fog on a kid's head.

Mention that dry ice "sublimes" (turns into gas, not liquid) as it melts. Tell them you can demonstrate it (put warm spoon on a large chunk of dry ice. Press firmly. Let them hear it "sing."

Show how cold it is by putting water in teaspoon and count seconds until it freezes.

Give them water with a little bit of soap in it, let them play with the bubbles.

Make "fizzy drink"

Put the last of the dry ice in warm water, let them sit around fog, try to corral it. Talk about Halloween special effects.
Give teams a cup (or container) for water and straw

Classic slime

What you need:

• borax powder (20 Mule Team borax is what I use)
• water
• 4 ounces glue (that's 1/2 cup. Use Elmer's white glue or the blue school glue White makes opaque slime)
• teaspoon
• bowl
• jar or measuring cup
• food coloring (optional)
• measuring cup

pour the glue into the jar. Add 1/2 cup of water (if you're feeling lazy, just empty the glue bottle and then fill it with water and mix in there. Add coloring.

Mix 1 tsp of borax into 1 cup of water. Slowly stir the glue-water into the borax-water mix (note... this makes a LOT of slime. You can make small amounts of it at a time, however)

For kids, pour it into a ziplock bag and have them knead the bag until the slime forms. The more that it's worked, the firmer it becomes. Store the slime in this bag in the refrigerator to prevent mold.


Slime Fun:
Do a "slime drop." (does it fall all at once or stretch? Whose falls slowest?)
What happens if you pull it apart really fast?
What happens when you pull it apart slowly?
Do "whose slime stretches farthest" race and "who has chunkiest slime".

Have them name their slime.

Growing cyrstal gardens

A fun project to do in class over the period of a week or so is grow crystals. Here's one of the "classic" recipes:

• substrate.
• 4 tbsp. bluing (found in grocery stores)
• 4 tbsp. salt (any kind)
  
• 1 tbsp. ammonia
  
• 4 tbsp. water
  
• food coloring
  
• plastic bowl or plate
  

Place small pieces of porous rock (some lava rocks are ideal), pieces of broken clay flowerpot basins, pieces of brick, or even charcoal bricks (or paper towels, if nothing else is available) in a shallow plastic plate. Soak the substrate for 15 minutes, dot with food coloring, and pour the crystal mix over the substrate. Make sure there's enough of the mix to soak/float the substrate in.

Crystals will begin to grow in four hours and can continue growing for up to three days, depending on other conditions. Add more solution to keep them growing for a bit longer.

Detective Scavenger Hunt

Only do this in an area where you can have good control over the kids (noise and damage -- and make sure they can't injure themselves. Warn them away from or block off areas where things could be damaged.)

If you don't have time to make up a scavenger hunt list before the kids show up, hide a few things around the room and divide the group into teams. Have each team make a list of things for the other teams to find. Pull all of them out of the room and give each team (or person, if the group is small enough) an additional item to hide. Add that to the list.

Swap lists.

Turn them loose.

This can also be done to good effect with outdoor activities (make a rubbing of a leaf shaped like an arrowhead, find a bird, find an oak tree, etc)

Using a rubric

Here's a nice page on using rubrics in teaching, something that can be added to a summer camp activity or any of the kits: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/3735

In a nutshell, when doing something comparative, have the students list for you words that exemplify the quality of something (for example -- slime. You might pick "gooeyness" and "color" and "stickiness") and then judge a sample on a scale of 1 to 5. Everyone can pick a number; add them all together and divide by the number of people (to make it easy on yourself if you have an impatient class, divide the class and have one group judge on one attribute and another judge on a different attribute. YOU do the math, or hand someone a calculator and ask them to do it.)

Rubrics can be used as a starting point for a discussion in many different areas.

Potato/tomato/lemon/vinegar battery

There's a number of videos on this activity that you can find through Google. Unfortunately, given the nature of video, they often vanish mysteriously into the bit bucket. And you can't give them a 20-second "look over" to refresh your knowledge; usually you have to sit there through the whole production.

So here's about making batteries from unusual things.

* it takes some sort of acid in solution. You might be able to do it with unusual things like aspirin diluted in water because (according to internet sources... we all know how reliable those are...) UNbuffered aspirin can be used to temporarily "revitalize" a dead battery. I'll try it sometime. Meanwhile, other things you can make batteries from (in case you forgot to buy a potato for the demonstration) include vinegar, lemon juice, and cola.

* you need an electrode of copper and one of zinc. A nail (zinc coated) and copper wire (or a penny) work well for this. You could use silver instead of copper, but that's more expensive.

* make sure the "leads" are clean. A little scrub with an abrasive works.
* if you're not using a vegetable or fruit, get a small container for the liquid.
* the amounts of electricity produced are small.
* use them to power a small LED. Look for one (Fry's) that doesn't require a lot of voltage.

http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/~kskeldon/PubSci/exhibits/E1/
http://hilaroad.com/camp/projects/lemon/calculator/calculator_battery.html

If you think you've got kids who may have seen potato/lemon/tomato batteries before, provide them with a little novelty. Using oranges or cola (or unbuffered aspirin if it works) will provide the "say WHAT?" factor that keeps them intrigued.

You will connect the battery components in series, not parallel, if you want to try and power a light:
http://www.sierranevadaairstreams.org/owners-guide/understanding/battery-config.html
http://www.zbattery.com/Connecting-Batteries-in-Series-or-Parallel

Keeping them amused in the morning

Papercraft (you print out 10 pieces of paper, bring scissors, glue, let them have at it usually does 2 things -- they're interested in a build and are learning build skills and they're keeping quiet.

A few for you to look at:
robots:
http://members.chello.nl/m.egtberts2/pdf/retrobot.pdf

Color their own/make their own:
http://members.chello.nl/m.egtberts2/pdf/fs_blank.pdfhttp://thunderpanda.com/509/

Thunderpanda Troops:
http://thunderpanda.com/509/

News stories for teachers

There's a "Robot Hall of Fame" at the Carnegie Mellon Institute, and there's a list of new inductees. Some are fictional, some are real, all have had a very strong social impact:
http://www.robothalloffame.org/

An article on how people react to robots -- it's mainly in how you think of them:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14666-robot-builders-seek-a-little-help-from-scifi.html

Science games: "Igor"

"Igor" is a "musical chairs" game variant that can be played with more than 6 kids and can be adapted to any of the sciences. Give the kids names related to the science activity that you're doing (hydrogen, carbon, oxygen as an example or maybe plankton, shrimp, fish, dolphins, whales ... anything at all, including the names of forces.)

If the group is large, make two people the same item (have 2 foxes, for instance, or 2 levers....) This kind of 'team' works particularly well for groups of 12 or larger.

Have the kids form a circle around you and pick someone to stand next to you. This person is "igor". Call out two 'team names' ("foxes and geese", for example). Everyone has to swap places and Igor has a chance to grab a seat. Last one to sit down becomes the new Igor.

If you get a situation where several people are standing around because they ALL want to be Igor, then make it 'first person to reach their seat is the new Igor.'

As a variant of this, you can allow Igors to call the items to be swapped.

An "all swap" can also be called, which causes a lot of very silly fun.

Where to find robots

Some of you have expressed interest in buying your own kit to work with and play with.

This was the lowest price I found for the "Rock-it" Robot (be aware that kits come with solder and nonsolder options -- we use the non-solder options):
http://www.owirobots.com/cart/index.php?l=product_detail&p=6

Here's the Jungle Bot:
http://www.owirobots.com/cart/index.php?l=product_detail&p=14

Here's a cute and cheap little solar powered "king crab" robot:
http://www.owirobots.com/cart/index.php?l=product_detail&p=23