Middle Grade Science Round Up: Our favorite 4 experiments

Science should be fun! Nothing gets students more excited to learn about the world around them than to do hands on activities. We’ve gathered together some of our favorite experiments from the world wide web and modified them to a classroom setting.

1.     Rain Cloud in a Jar

Weather is one of those topics children are always curious about because it affects their daily lives. This fun and simple experiment from www.mommasfunworld.blogspot.com is perfect for a rainy day! It gives visual illustration and leads to wonderful discussion about cloud formation and water capacity, as well as how rain is formed.

We’ve modified the experiment to make it work for the classroom. Gather enough jars per student (size isn’t too important), some small plastic cups, half a dozen cans of shaving cream, plastic spoons, and various food coloring. Make sure you are near a sink because you’ll also need water.

Have your students fill their jars about halfway with water, and a third of their plastic cup with water as well. Help them spray a shaving cream “cloud” onto their jar’s water surfaces. Then encourage your students to choose a food coloring color and put 6-10 drops into the water in their plastic cups. They can mix the coloring into the water with their spoon.

Then have them use the spoon to drip colored water onto the shaving cream and observe it. You can have them draw pictures or write down their observations in a science journal. Or offer them a prepared paper to record their findings.

2.     Magic Ketchup Packet

 This activity requires little more than a quick stop at your nearest fast food restaurant and saving up recyclable 1-liter clear plastic bottles with lids (or having students each bring one!) We found it on www.ScienceBob.com and pinned several of his ideas on our middle grade science board. You’ll also need kosher salt and water.

Have students make predictions about whether the packets will float or sink in water as they remove any labels on the bottles and fill them all the way to the top with water. Then have them add their sauce packet to the bottle. At this point, we want the sauce to float. If they do, have students recap the lid. If some of your students’ sauce packets sink, replace packet. If the packets still sink, remove them and add 3 tablespoons salt to water, screw lid on and shake to dissolve salt. Then replace sauce packet in the water. Keep adding salt a little at a time until sauce packet is consistently floating at the top of the water.

Once all the packets are floating in closed bottles, show your students how squeezing the bottle makes the packet sink, and releasing it makes it float. Have them try to get the packet to stay in the middle of the water.

Then discuss buoyancy and density of items and water and how they work together. Then explain that there is a little bubble in the packets. Reiterate that bubbles float and the bubbles in the sauce packets keeps them from sinking. But squeezing the bottle hard enough pressurizes the packet, minimizing the bubble and making the entire packet more dense than the water.

Then have your students predict how different food packets will react in the same situation. Also discuss if temperature changes the density or if the size of the bottle affects the buoyancy. Have fun with it!

3.     Flower Pigment Experiment

This fantastic exploration of flowers’ rebirth in spring came originally from Scientific American. (But we found and pinned it from www.coffeecupandcrayons.com)  It’s more involved than the ones we usually do and definitely requires adult participation so having a teacher’s aid is a big bonus! They students will work in groups, so it also encourages teamwork.

Materials:

Petals from different flowers (You can bring in a bouquet and have them pluck the petals of their choice.)

Several tall glass jars

Paper towels

Tape

Pencils

Rubbing Alcohol (about 1/4 cup per jar)

Water (about 1/4 cup per jar)

Toy Cars (or round blocks or wooden rolling pins or anything else to smash the pigment out of the petals.)

Have students cut paper towels into strips as tall as their jars. Then tell them to draw a line across each one about an inch from the bottom. Then have them measure out and mix together the rubbing alcohol and water in their jars, being sure that there’s only about 1 inch of the liquid in the jars.

If you brought bouquets, let students pick their petals. Have them lay the petal on and below the line they drew and use toy car/blocks/rolling pin to transfer the petals pigment onto the paper towel strip.

Now have students tape their paper towel strip to their pencil. Have them set the pigment end of strips down into the jar and barely touch the water, leaving pencils on tops of jars about 20 minutes. During the waiting period, you can have them make predictions and observations in a science journal.

When 20 minutes is up, have students remove paper strips from jar and tape to a counter to let dry.

During your next science period, compare the color pattern to see if the flowers you tested are the same pigment. Then you can discuss several topics, including the vibrancy of the flower they chose, how pigment is created in plants, or even the process of chlorophyll gathering sunlight and how it affects flowers.

4.     Make Lightning

Another weather player that lends well to fun science is lightning. We really like www.learnplayimagine.com’s first experiment that demonstrates static electricity in action, that spark that personifies the electrons that speed between the earth and sky.

You’ll need brand new pencils with eraser still intact, aluminum trays or pie tins, Styrofoam plates, and thumb tacks.

Sandwich your aluminum tray between the pencils erasers and the sharp end of the pushpin. The pencil will create a handle so your students can lift the aluminum tray later.

Then have your students rub the Styrofoam plates on their heads for about two minutes, telling them the more quickly they rub the better their spark will be. Motivation is needed and this will also produce some giggles.

Then have the students pick up their aluminum trays with the pencil handle and set it on the Styrofoam plate. Sparks should start creating shrieks of delight in the room!

From here, you can ease into lessons about static electricity, clouds, thunder, lightning or anything else that it pertains to.

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This is just a sampling of the fun we’ve pinned and used from our Pinterest page. Be sure to check it out from the link above or the button on instructomania’s homepage.

Have you tried any of these experiments or something similar? What are some of your middle grade students’ favorite science experiments?