April 28, 2017
by John Frassinelli
Having first seen a “drinking bird” in elementary school myself, I had never forgotten it. Our teacher, I think, had placed one on the windowsill. We had no air conditioning in those days, and the windows actually opened! Air circulated through the room, and that probably influenced the bird. I think it’s too bad that many classrooms are hermetically sealed these days, but we do what we can.
Recently I decided to introduce my first graders to my old friend, the Drinking Bird. I bought a few birds and fooled around with them, making sure each one would “drink” as it was supposed to. I learned that some birds need a bit of adjustment—their centers of mass might be too high or too low. But this is easily remedied by gently twisting the bird’s body and raising (or lowering) it on its metal clasp.
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Elementary level, energy, experiments, Physics | Tagged: DIY, Educational Innovations, elementary science, energy, experiments, fun experiments, hands-on activity, homeschool, PBL, PhBL, PhenoBL, phenomenon based learning, Physics, science, STEM, variables | 
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
April 14, 2017
by Nancy Foote
The latest addition to my classroom’s Curiosity Table is a Static Electricity Electroscope. The fact that it looks a bit odd made it even more intriguing to my students. Once they began to play with the electroscope, they couldn’t stop. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
March 31, 2017
by Nancy Foote
I’m in love with goldenrod paper. I’ve loved it for a long time. In my never-ending quest to emotionally entangle my students in the content of our science curriculum, Color-Changing Goldenrod Paper provides a long-lasting entanglement.
If you’ve never done the bloody handprint goldenrod paper demo with your students, you are truly missing out—and so are they)! This is the most engaging “engage” part of the 5 E’s I’ve ever experienced. I like to do the bloody handprint demo around Halloween, but we don’t do acid/base chemistry until February. That’s a long time to wonder, ponder and try to figure out exactly what is happening. But that’s for another blog post.
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
March 3, 2017
by Paul Reyna
Have you ever had a science activity or demonstration that you really liked to do with your students, but then were told you could not do it anymore—or it did not fit your curriculum?
That is exactly what happened to me a few years ago.
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4 Comments | College level, Elementary level, energy, experiments, High School level, Middle School level, Physics | Tagged: acceleration, DIY, Educational Innovations, energy, experiments, fun experiments, green energy, hands-on activity, homeschool, kinetic energy, parent friendly, PBL, PhBL, PhenoBL, phenomenon based learning, science, science fair project, STEM, variables | Permalink
Posted by Donna Giachetti
February 7, 2017
Thermal energy—the energy that is generated and measured by heat—is such a wonderful topic that can be approached in many ways. So many questions to explore! What is heat? How does heat travel? What’s the difference between heat and temperature? How do we measure temperature? What are conductors? Insulators? And on and on…
There are times when a video offers the easiest, most accessible way to explain a concept. This is certainly true when it comes to thermal energy. Feel free to share this collection of videos with your students! If you find a video on thermal energy that you think deserves to be added here, please let us know in the Comments section below.
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Posted by Donna Giachetti
