Science Circus

This week has been an adventure for me!  I have been teaching at Brainworks Learning Lab which is a locally owned learning center.  I have been doing a series called Science Circus.  This is a three hour a day camp with ten kids doing the fun things that you want to do in a classroom, but it doesn't fit with a standard. This has been so fun!  I have loved doing Science with them all week.  Here is a list of things that I have done with them this week. (I have to give credit to Steve Spangler Science for helping me come up with so many activities for them to complete)  All the activities can be found on the Steve Spangler website unless otherwise noted. 

Day 1 
* We made a solar oven (which I treated as a STEM challenge) and cooked Smores outside with the solar energy.
*We made Color Changing Milk.  This was a very quick neat activity. 
*We made homemade ice cream in a tub that they had to shake for 20 minutes.  Yes, I said twenty minutes.  The kids got creative on how they shook their ice cream tub. 
*We watched a video from Curiosity Quest (found on You Tube) of how ice cream is made.  This was to help time the 20 minutes of shaking!

Day 2
*We made a Diving Ketchup bottle. 
*We made Jellyfish and learned how black is really not just the color of black.  
*We made spaghetti dance and wiggle. 
*We tried to make a Popsicle chain reaction. (HINT: Use the large Popsicle sticks!  It did not work with the regular craft sticks)

Day 3
*We completed Genetics with a Smile (pulled from The Science Spot).  I had loads of fun teaching 2-5 graders about Punnett Squares, Genotypes, Phenotypes, Recessive, and Dominant traits.  You would be AMAZED at what they soak up.  (These are middle school standards)
*We tested candy bars to see if they sank or floated.
*We extracted DNA from a strawberry!!!!!!!
*We pulled the M and the S off of the M&M and the Skittles.  This was AWESOME and great to see the kids reaction when the letter floated right off of the candy.  I loved seeing the excitement.
*We made a colorful density column in a straw.

This is when I planned to start the blog so the next two days are my plans of what are going to happen. I will update with pictures.  

Day 4
*The Power of Bleach

This is a picture of kids mixing te water and bleach solution to change color. 

*Red Cabbage Chemistry

This activity was a beat activity and got the kids excited about "doing" science. We also had a great discussion of household items that are acidic and that are base. Below you will find two pictures one before the solution with out 13 different items and the an after the solution was added picture. 

          

*Taco Sauce Penny Cleaner

We concluded that the Taco Bell mild sauce cleaned the pennies the best.  *Musical Straws- This activity was a huge hit. After completing this activity all the wanted to do was play music with the straws. 
*Wrapper Worm
*Penny Boat Race

Day 5
*Singing Glasses
*Elephant Toothpaste (The students are intrigued by this title already) 
The video below is a short demonstration of what happened.  If I could do it over I would have doubled the ingredients. 

*Pop Rocks Experiment
*Quicksand Goo

*Mentos Geyser- In the two video's below, we tested Diet Coke and Coke to see which worked best.

 

This was an awesome week! 


Science is Everywhere