A collection of moments from Division 3's learning community
Have you ever performed a dissection? We learned that dissections were (and are) a tool that scientists use to learn more about the biology and anatomy of plants, animals, and even people. We performed a ‘mock’ dissection using Twinkies! Our students needed to practice their precision, observation, and patience when taking samples, making incisions, and removing ‘organs’ (filling) from their ‘test subjects’.
This week, we will continue exploring our unit on body Science! We discussed how important it is to keep our teeth clean and cavity-free. Brushing our teeth at least twice a day, flossing daily, and limiting our exposure to sugar, carbohydrates, and acidic foods and drinks are all great ways to improve our oral health!
As part of our Science experiment, we will be testing what substances might weaken our teeth. To test this, we will put eggs into these different solutions: lemonade, coffee, Diet Coke, Coke, cotton candy + water, vinegar, and Alka-Seltzer + water. We also will be using water as our control. The calcium in eggshells is similar to the minerals in our teeth, so if the eggshell dissolves or is damaged it might mean that substance could possibly degrade our tooth health!
Watch the video below to learn more about dental hygiene:
Here are some helpful tips for keeping our teeth healthy!
What makes for an accurate and informative Science experiment? Well, we need to make sure we have a strong hypothesis, a clear control, and a variety of variables. Today, we began our investigation into the question: how can we create the largest, most dramatic eruption when mixing Mentos and soda?
So far, we have tested 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Zero, Pepsi, Orange Crush, generic brand cola, and soda water (our control). We noticed that the Diet sodas performed very well.
Now, as a Scientist you must decide… what variables should be manipulate to get different results? Should we test smaller bottles of pop? Different kinds of soda (ex: Sprite, Root Beer)? Should we use different amounts of Mentos? Would other candies have similar effects?
We will continue this investigation over the next week!
October is ‘Spooky Science’ Month in our classroom! For our experiment, we learned about DNA in plants, animals, and humans. We explored the science behind the cloning of Dolly the sheep. Finally, we extracted the DNA from strawberries using dish soap, salt, strawberries, and isopropyl alcohol.