Earthworm Study

Students explore worm adaptations and perform 5 lab experiments. Plus they get to create a worm hotel for the classroom!

Included (18 pages):
11 pdf presentation slides
Lab 1 Structural Adaptations: label / estimate / measure / describe attributes / review worm parts
Lab 2 Behavioral Adaptations: light / moisture / sound experimentation
Lab 3 Worm Observation: build a worm hotel instructions / observation sheet
Lab 4 Predator and Prey: draw worms in natural habitat (tunnels) / draw 3 predators / draw 2 worm food items
Lab 5 Straw Paper Work Trick: instructions for kids / kids draw their paper worm

Free Download!

Supercooling Water

Matter: Can water remain a liquid below its normal freezing point 0°C (32°F), then crystallize on command (solid)?! Click here for the scientific explanation behind supercooling and snap freezing! Weather: Learn about supercooled water droplets in clouds here and how this experiment relates to freezing rain!



Turn this experiment into a delicious treat! Check out Grant Thompson's video tutorial: Self Freezing Soda!

Water Balloon Compass

Integrate science and social studies by creating a water balloon compass! Click here for a video tutorial! Visit Questacon for written instructions!

FOAM Math

This math experiment comes from Growing in 5th Grade! Kids compare the suds created by different dish soaps. They add 1/2 cup water and 2 drops of soap to a water bottle and shake! Then, they measure the height of the suds! Which soap created the most suds?! Is this a physical or chemical change?!

Science - Go With The Flow! (laminar flow)
Visit Exploratorium to explore water patterns (turbulence) created by shaking dish soap, water, and a drop of food coloring!

Mr. Evaporation

Have kids construct an Evaporation Cup Man or Lady! Check out Miss Klipfel's first grade evaporation project! Kids decorate a cup, add water, cover the top with a material (punch holes or not), and wait till it evaporates! They measure their "friend" and keep track of any changes. Does material affect how fast or slow water will evaporate? If you don't punch holes in your material, will it evaporate?! Have kids make a prediction. As a class, create a graph showing their predictions. See the experiment in action here!

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

Capacity Relay Race

Split kids up into 2 teams. Give each team a bucket of water and a sponge. Across from each team set up different sized containers (cup, liter, gallon -also can include- pint, quart, half gallon) in a line. Kids within a team take turns racing to fill a gallon of water! 

First, they must fill up their cup by dipping the sponge into the bucket of water and squeezing the water out into the cup. Once the cup is filled, they dump it into the next item. The item won't be filled after a single cup. So, the next team member races to fill up another cup. Once the bottle is filled, they write down how many cups it took to fill the bottle. 

Then, they dump it into the next sized container. The water won't fill up the container. They have to start racing to fill up a cup again and figure out how many cups will fill up this container. 

The winner is the first team to fill up the last, largest container and have the correct answers written down (how many cups are in each container)!

Spiky Crystals

Grow crystals in your fridge with epsom salt and hot water!
Chemistry crystals (featured above) - Instructables
Cup of Quick Crystal Needles - About.com

You can also explore evaporation by growing crystals outdoors! Check out Exploratorium's Spiky Sun Crystals!

To incorporate this into a fossil unit, grow crystals on a sponge to investigate permineralization, visit Layers of Learning!

Color UN-mixing

Awesome experiment from the Surfing Scientist! Kids investigate laminar flow: liquid flowing in parallel layers. They rotate a cylinder glass, watching colors mix and un-mix right before their eyes!

Cubes and Color

How does color affect how fast an ice cube will melt?! Investigate the heat absorbing capacity of different colors by placing ice cubes on various colors of construction paper (make sure you include black and white). Do certain colors reflect or absorb more light? Lay the paper and cubes in a super sunny spot. Then, make a prediction, create a list of what cubes you think will melt the fastest. Have kids write the color names in a column, starting with the color they think will make the ice cube melt the fastest and ending with the color they think will melt the ice cube the slowest. Create a graph of the kids' predictions. 

Green Planet suggests a twist on the experiment. Kids test colored cubes on white paper. They use food coloring to create different colors. For a white cube they add milk. To create a black cube they add cola. They place one colored cube on each piece of white paper. Which cube will melt the fastest?!

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!

Speed Boat Chemical Reaction!

Create a chemical reaction to make a boat go from ZOOM! Similar to Bag Bomb, this experiment explores the three states of matter. Kids mix baking soda and vinegar to create CO2 to make their soda bottle boat zoom!

materials: 
empty soda bottle
toilet paper
baking soda
vinegar
marbles (or another object to weigh the boat down)
thumbtack or x-acto blade
a large tub of water

1. First, put marbles in the bottle and test it in water. You want the boat to be submerged.
2. Take the boat out of water. Make a hole in the bottle cap for air to seep out (using x-acto or tack). The hole should be submerged in water (when you place the bottle in the water).
Same instructions as Bag Bomb:
3. Pull off a strip of toilet paper (three sheets connected) and pour baking soda on the strip.
4. Fold and form a pocket to hold the baking soda (or roll it)
5. Add vinegar (1/4 of the soda bottle)
6. Drop the baking soda pocket in the bottle
7. Fast: Put cap on and quickly place in water!

FIZZ bombs

Explore the three states of matter by creating fizz bombs! Fizz bombs (aka bath bombs) are solid. You drop them in a bowl of water (liquid) and produce a bubbly, fizzing reaction (gas)! I, personally, wouldn't take a bath with one, but it makes a fantastic science experiment. The recipe comes from the Fitness Guru (click here for more detailed instructions).

materials:
1 cup citric acid
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup light canola oil
1/2 cup cornstarch
food coloring (optional)

1. mix dry ingredients
2. mix oil and food coloring in separate container
3. add wet to dry ingredients
4. find a mold to shape them (the fitness guru suggests plastic eggs)

Once dry, drop them in water - solid, liquid, gas!

Wind Powered Balloon Squid

Explore the power of air and wind energy by constructing a balloon squid to play with in the pool! Estimate the distance you think your squid can swim. Then, measure the actual distance he travelled. Build more than one and have a balloon squid race! Click here for how to instructions from Monkey See Monkey Do!

materials: balloon, snap top from water bottle, ribbon, sharpie

Click here to learn how to make an air powered balloon boat!

Soil Density Column

How much sand, silt, clay, and plant material is in your soil? Integrate science and math with this simple experiment! Kids pour 1/3 of their jar with soil. Then, they add water and stir. Let your jar sit for  at least a day. The longer you let it rest, the better the results! Once the soil separates, have kids figure out the fraction for each of the soil components. Older kids can figure out the percentage.

Visit Soil-Net for full instructions. Click here for a pdf from Soil-Net to go along with the experiment.

Musical Fractions

Kids explore fractions, while writing a colorful melody, without even knowing how to read music! Fill glasses up with different fractions of water and add food coloring. Provide students with paper to write their songs. Have kids make a hypothesis about why the glasses of water project different sounds. Is it the color of the water: No! Kids will be wowed at how water level makes an impact on the sound that projects from each glass. The fraction of water in each glass produces a different pitch.

Sand Castle Experiment

This surface tension experiment comes from The Indianapolis Public Library Kid Blog! Students explore measuring by adding different amounts of water to 1 cup of sand to see what water to sand ratio makes the ideal sand castle. They investigate fractions when measuring their water (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 1 cup). They construct a total of four mini cup castles (using different amounts of water for each one). Then, they estimate how many pennies each "castle" will hold. Which castle do they think will be the strongest? They count out the pennies, as they lay them on top of each cup castle. Can any of their mini castles hold 25 pennies? Which castle was the strongest? Visit IPL Kid Blog for the scientific explanation behind this experiment!

Coins, Bills, and Presidents

Coin Experiments Featured:
1. Make a Quarter Cast and fool your friends with a magic trick! -  Magic.About
2. Make green pennies and glimmering pennies, exploring electrochemistry! - Fun Science for Girls
3. How many drops of water can you put on a penny before it spills off? - The Last Blog After Eugenics
4. How many pennies can you put into a cup of water without a spill? - Learning Ideas K-8
5. Knock the bottom coin out of a coin tower, without it toppling over! - Zoom
6. Coin Drop: Make a basket with a flick of your fingers! - Steve Spangler
7. Swing a coin by a coat hanger! How does it stick?! - Visit ABC News in Science for this magical trick!

More:
8. Color Changing Quarter: Turn a quarter copper! - MegaMVP555
9. Vibrate a penny and make it dance on the opening of a water bottle - April Oaks
10. Fool your eyes with a refraction experiment (penny in a cup of water) - Steve Spangler
11. Make a quarter scream! - Science Bob
12. Trick your friends with Candace's Coin Trick (glue stick, 3 pennies)
13. Pennies Afloat - Riding in a boat

Money Maker - Put yourself on a bill! - Upload a photo at Festisite!

Coin Scavenger Hunt - Hunt for coins minted from various years and sequence them in order! 
Coin Rubbings - Put coins under thin paper and rub over top with crayons.
Where's George? - Track a dollar bill!

photo via spoonful

Paper Log Cabin - Split students up into teams. Then, have them sketch out a design and construct it using paper tubes. Visit Spoonful (featured left).


Pretzel Stick Log Cabin - Chocolate Frosting Adhesive


Cherry Tree - Use a soda bottle for prints or crunch up tissue paper.


Life-Sized Presidents - Have kids split up into groups and pick a president. They measure out his height and create a paper president.


Writing - What would you do if you were president?

H2O Race

photo via surf ky video

I was inspired by Hooked on Science's H2O Race (an experiment on cohesion); so, I created my own game board to go along with a water cycle unit. Two different science lessons in one game! Kids learn about water cohesion and see three of the steps of the water cycle.

1. Print 2 copies of the game board below.
2. Cover the game boards with contact paper.
3. Place one drop of water near the start area on both boards.
4. Then, with a toothpick, each player "pulls" their drop of water along their game board.
5. Whoever reaches the finish line first wins!

Explanation - Water molecules are attracted to one another: Cohesion! If you scroll through Surf Ky's Hooked on Science video channel, you can see the water cohesion game (above) in action!

Volcano, Tornado, Tsunami!

Check out Met Office to see how to make a tornado in a jar!

Then, visit Mad About Science to build a model tsunami!