Water Wheels

Integrate math (measuring), science / engineering (simple machines, force/motion, renewable energy), art (design), and history by constructing a water wheel! 

Wired - Can you construct a water wheel that can lift a small load?
Science Buddies - "Put Your Water to Work," exploring Hydropower!
Meet the Greens - Kids go green (water wheel featured bottom right)
History - water wheel / Types - get kids inspired (design) / Physics - water wheel

Solar Energy Balloon Blow Up!

Explore the power of the sun's heat by blowing up a balloon on a bottle! Kids paint one soda bottle white and the other black. Once dry, they attach a small balloon to the necks of their bottles. Then, they put the bottles out in the sun for a solar reaction!

Kids see that the air in the black bottle will make the balloon expand! The white bottle doesn't heat up as fast. Check out the experiment here!

Solar Water

Investigate renewable energy, while exploring the water cycle, with this fun experiment from Agoosa! Kids magically turn salt water into fresh water with the help of solar energy!

how to:
Pour 2 cups of water into a large bowl.
Mix 3 tsp of salt into the water. Taste the water, it's super salty!
Place a small empty bowl or cup inside of the larger bowl. 
Cover with plastic wrap and place outside in the sun.
Either place a rock on top of the bowl or secure the wrap with a rubber band (to keep plastic wrap tightly secured on the bowl).
Keep the bowl outside for 1 to 3 days (until you get enough purified water into your small bowl to taste).
Compare the water in the larger bowl to the water in the smaller bowl. Do you taste the difference?!

what's happening?!
The sun's rays will heat the water, causing it to evaporate!
Salt is too heavy to evaporate; so, it stays in the larger bowl.
Condensation will occur, creating water droplets on the plastic wrap.
Gravity makes the large droplets drip into the "collection container" (your small bowl) - creating fresh water!

Rocket Pinwheel

Explore Newton's Third Law of Motion by constructing a rocket pinwheel! Checkout this video from Monkey See Monkey Do here for complete instructions and the explanation behind this experiment!

materials: balloon, pencil, bendy straw, tape, and needle

Cookie Rocks and Mining

2 activities, Science and Economics:

1. Cookie Rocks - This experiment is inspired by Kinderpond's "C is for Cookie." Have all students sit around a large table. Give each kid a cookie. Then, have them destroy it! 

Weathering
First, have them experiment with a toothpick. Next, give them an ice cube to see the effects of ice on a cookie. They'll use the cube to chop at the cookie. Then, hand out an eyedropper to represent rain. Kids squirt water on the cookie. Note: You could even use a spray bottle.

Erosion
Once their finished demolishing their cookie, pass out straws. Have kids blow (wind) their cookie crumbles (rock fragments) toward the center of the table. Then, sweep their crumbs into a pile. 

Deposition
Add a couple drops of water to their crumbs (if needed) and squish them all together.


2. Cookie Mining Economics -  Check out the Museum of Science and Industry's Cookie Mining Project. Kids excavate chocolate chips from a cookie; but, first they have to purchase the materials they need and stay within their price range!

energy resources (renewable vs. non-renewable) - You can also use this activity to explore . Kids get a soft and hard chocolate chip cookie (which represent 2 landsites). Can they dig out coal without harming the landsite? Which site was easier to retrieve the coal? Visit Third Grade Thinkers for instructions!

Sun Baked Bricks

Make your own mini bricks, while learning about soil composition and solar energy, from 60 Second Science. All you need is clay-rich soil, water, ice cube tray (or mold), dry grass, and a sunny spot outside. Place your soil into a bowl, add a little bit of water, and stir around with a craft stick until you get a "thick" mud consistency. Next, mix in your grass. Then, press your mixture into your mold and smooth your bricks out on top. Now, bake your bricks in the sun! Talk about how the sun is a form of radiant energy, as well as thermal energy. The sun is a renewable resource that we can utilize to heat things up! When the bricks are ready, remove them from the mold and build something! You can keep your bricks natural or paint them. You can make houses for action figures, caves for animal figurines, etc. 

Balloon Car

Have kids design a balloon car, bring it to class, and see who's can travel the fastest and farthest. They could uses legos, soda caps, tops of fast food cups, or even cds for wheels. Tell kids to get creative with the car's body. They can make long thin cars or big fat boxed cars. Design elements are completely up to the kids. Their goal is to make a car that is not only fast, but can travel super far. In the classroom, have kids use their measuring skills to figure out the distance their vehicles traveled. Who's car has the most stamina?

See written instructions for Steve Spangler's balloon car (featured above) as well as more racing toy experiments here. 

Aso check out Design Squad's 2 wheel (made with life savers candy) and 4 wheel balloon car!

image credit: Design Squad Nation (2 wheel balloon car)

Solar Power

Go green, learn about radiant and thermal energy, and have a snack! Upcycle a pizza box into a solar oven! Whip up smores, roast a hot dog, munch on nachos, or zap leftovers. The oven heats up to 275 degrees. Click here for written instructions!

Rocket Launch

photo credit: Great Fall Elementary via Connection Newspaper

Soda straw rockets from NASA! After you construct your rockets, have a math lesson. See how far your students can launch them! Measure how far they land. What is the best angle to shoot your rocket? NASA Rocket template (download here) 

photos via family fun

Other Rocket Activities:
Spring a Red Solo Cup Rocket up into the air!
Blast a Bottle Rocket outside!