Science Skills – MatterMasters

Use of a Microscope

May 2, 2016 by webmaster

For a virtual microscope, go here.

Measuring Rocks

November 26, 2015November 17, 2015 by webmaster

In the science lab, we have many tools that we use, and here are some of the tools that students will be practicing with:

balance scales
measuring tapes
“centicubes” (gram blocks)
items to measure – in this case, rocks

Students need to practice these skills:

to only put ONE rock on one side of the balance scales
when to stop adding more gram blocks
when to take off extra gram blocks
to count – and some of the rocks are over 50 grams, so this can be tricky for some of our youngest students
to recognize balance
the end of the measuring tape is zero – even if there is no zero shown
to make sure the rock (or object) is at the zero to start
to know length, width, and around
to record their measurements (with kinder, we first start with just practicing how to measure)

Here are a couple interactive websites or online games:

All of your links must be assigned at least to one category to be displayed

Graphing Coordinates

March 21, 2018November 9, 2015 by webmaster

On November 2nd, 4th and 5th graders were given the job of finding locations of earthquakes and volcanoes on a map by using coordinates. They struggled with understanding the process behind this, so this week we took a step backwards to practice how to find coordinates on a grid. After graphing the points on the grid and connecting them, it made a picture. Many students asked “why are we doing math in science?” to which I replied that the two were linked and that scientists often need to keep data, and that data often needed to be figured out by using math. They HAVE done math before in the science lab, so this really is not anything new, but this time the lesson was specifically math in order for them to be able to continue with our earthquake and volcano mapping. Here is the picture that we made using coordinates: