Science Snippets
MPS Elementary Science for December 2023
3-2-1 Pyramid
Bottom Row: Write one sentence to summarize the media.
Middle Row: Write two ways the topic is significant or important.
Top row: Write three facts you learned.
Modifications and Extensions:
Modify the prompts used in each level of the pyramid to fit needs of students.
Use in cooperative groups of 3. Assign each student a level of the pyramid
Onto District Competitions!
Your classroom and school competitions are finally complete! Thank you for hanging in there with all the updates and new events. I hope you were able to enjoy the time as your students strived with their own ideas and designs.
What's next?
District competitions are in February. Your school Science Olympics Coordinator will be handling all the permission skips, notes to parents, and the trip to the competition. 4th - 6th, to be on the safe side, make a copy of your students' blueprints and give one copy to the Science Olympics Sponsor for safe keeping.
District Competition Dates:
- Moore - Feb. 6
- Southmoore - Feb. 7
- Westmoore - Feb. 8
Leadership and Classroom Secrets to Help Struggling Students Achieve
The achievement gap between rich students and poor students continues to be a major problem in our nation’s schools. Join us for a free webinar with educational expert Dr. Eric Jensen. Discover how learning environments and different teaching strategies impact brain development, and what school leaders and educators can do to help students of poverty catch up to their peers once and for all. Dr. Jensen is a leader in brain-based learning and author of several best-selling books, including Poor Students, Rich Teaching. If you are looking for ways to boost your Title 1 student performance, this is one session you won’t want to miss!
Engaging All Students with Poverty in Mind
Many leaders (as well as classroom teachers) experience frustration with engaging students who come from adversity. Yet highly successful teachers have been using simple, but extremely effective tools for decades. Join us for a fast-moving session packed with tools, evidence and classroom examples. You will get real- world examples you can use ASAP to turn students into “love to learn” and “I want to participate” magnets for learning. Just in time to help your work make a BIG difference this year!
The Most Magnificent Thing
The girl has a wonderful idea. “She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!” But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right.
Ada Twist, Scientist
Ada Twist’s head is full of questions. Like her classmates Iggy and Rosie (stars of their own New York Times bestselling picture books Iggy Peck, Architect and Rosie Revere, Engineer), Ada has always been endlessly curious. Even when her fact-finding missions and elaborate scientific experiments don’t go as planned, Ada learns the value of thinking through problems and continuing to stay curious.
Dinosaur Lady
Mary Anning loved scouring the beach near her home in England for shells and fossils. She fearlessly climbed over crumbling cliffs and rocky peaks, searching for new specimens. One day, something caught Mary's eye.
Bones. Dinosaur Bones.
Mary's discoveries rocked the world of science and helped create a brand-new field of study: paleontology. But many people believed women couldn't be scientists, so Mary wasn't given the credit she deserved. Nevertheless, Mary kept looking and learning more, making discoveries that reshaped scientific beliefs about the natural world.
Super Women: Six Scientists Who Changed the World
Katherine Coleman Johnson. Eugenie Clark. Marie Tharp. Gertrude Elion. Florence Hawley Ellis. Eleanor Margaret Burbidge. Acclaimed author Laurie Lawlor deftly paints portraits of each of these figures who refused to take no for an answer, pursuing their passions through fieldwork, observations, laboratories, and research vessels in the face of sexism, racism, and more. This diverse group of women, all with awe-inspiring accomplishments, were active mentors and determined people who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History
You may think you know women’s history pretty well. But have you ever heard of:
• Alice Ball, the chemist who developed an effective treatment for leprosy—only to have the credit taken by a man?
• Mary Sherman Morgan, the rocket scientist whose liquid fuel compounds blasted the first U.S. satellite into orbit?
• Huang Daopo, the inventor whose weaving technology revolutionized textile production in China—centuries before the cotton gin?
In Wonder Women, author Sam Maggs tells the stories of the brilliant, brainy, and totally rad women in history who broke barriers as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers, and inventors.
Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science
Maria Merian was sure that caterpillars were not wicked things born from mud, as most people of her time believed. Through careful observation she discovered the truth about metamorphosis and documented her findings in gorgeous paintings of the life cycles of insects.
More than a century later, Mary Anning helped her father collect stone sea creatures from the cliffs in southwest England. To him they were merely a source of income, but to Mary they held a stronger fascination. Intrepid and patient, she eventually discovered fossils that would change people’s vision of the past.
Across the ocean, Maria Mitchell helped her mapmaker father in the whaling village of Nantucket. At night they explored the starry sky through his telescope. Maria longed to discover a new comet—and after years of studying the night sky, she finally did.
Told in vibrant, evocative poems, this stunning novel celebrates the joy of discovery and finding wonder in the world around us.
Growing Crystals
SUPPLIES
- Evergreen Branch {test different types of evergreens if you can!}
- Borax Powder
- Water
- Bowl, Measuring Cup, and Spoon
- Mason Jar or Tall Glass {not plastic}
Ice Painting
Give kids a tray of colored ice cubes and a large sheet of paper. As the ice cubes melt, they can use them as “paintbrushes” to create unique artwork on the paper. Experiment with different colors and observe how they blend as the ice melts.
Walking Water
- Water
- Test Tubes and Rack (clear plastic cups or mason jars work well too!)
- Food Coloring
- Paper Towels
- Stirrer
- Scissors
- Timer (optional)
Drawing
To be entered into the drawing, tell me if this statement is fact or fiction:
Last Month: The Majority of Earth’s Oxygen Is Produced by Oceans: Fact!
December: There are more stars in our Solar System than trees on earth. Fact or Fiction?
You don't have to answer the question correctly to win the prize! :)