Welcome to 6th Grade

(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. 

6th grade got in to the Halloween spirit this past FLEX Day with a little dry ice fun! Add a bit of colored water, place it in a flask (makes it look extra science-y!), and you’ve created a spooky ambiance that made our normal work a lot more fun. And to top it off, we got to enjoy some carbonated apple cider with our lunch!  

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.