Welcome to 6th Grade

The activity provides the perfect transition from our chapter on energy transfer in the atmosphere and wind formation to our chapter on weather. 

6th grade tried their hand at mining for Lima beans. They had to choose a tool (spoon, pencil, or tweezers) and try to find all of the beans in their 

(It was not easy to find leaves that were still green at the end of November, but we managed!) We observed the different pigments present in leaves that outwardly only appeared green. We concluded the activity with a discussion about what we might see if we tried this activity at a different time of the year, using leaves from a tree known to turn colors in the fall. 

To add some fun to our lesson on minerals, 6th grade grew some salt crystals! We learned about different properties of a mineral and how minerals form. One way minerals form is through the evaporation of water. Any dissolved minerals in the water crystallize into a solid as the water evaporates. We saw that first hand last week, when we made a salt water solution and left it to evaporate over the weekend. We got the chance to observe some beautiful cubic crystals!!

Want to try “crystal” formation at home? Make some rock candy! Though sugar is not a mineral, the process of the sugar crystallizing out of the hot water solution models another method of mineral formation! 

The 6th grade put some scientific claims to the test this week. After reading about the importance of skepticism, and making some info-mercials of our own, we decided to test an actual product's claims. We took four different brands of paper towels, and tested their strength by placing marbles on a soaked sheet of paper towel until it tore. We graphed our data, and then finished off the activity with a great discussion on our scientific process, and what sort of claims we reasonably could (or could not) make from the data we collected.