Tag Archives: measuring

Spend a little, gain a lot

By Debra Shapiro | Published: March 21, 2010
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I revisited a popular session held last year in New Orleans to see who showed up this year.

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All about animals

By Debra Shapiro | Published: March 18, 2010
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This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a Madagascar hissing beetle.

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Science for all

By Mary Bigelow | Published: March 13, 2010
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My next-door neighbor is a lovely young woman, currently at the top of her junior class and gathering information on colleges. She’s interested in studying chemistry/chemical engineering (hooray!). I was reflecting on the opportunities she has that did not exist years ago when I was in her situation. Many colleges with strong science/engineering programs were [...]

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Pumpkin science

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: October 28, 2009
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What’s happening in the early childhood world of Pumpkin Science? Have you planted and harvested pumpkins? Have you weighed, floated, cut-open, counted seeds, printed, or rolled pumpkins? Share your pumpkin science lesson here! Add a comment by clicking on the word “comment” below. Hint: write and save your comment in a separate document to cut [...]

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Planting this fall for springtime blooms

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: August 29, 2009
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I’m planning a fall gardening activity now, before school starts, and the first step is to mark my calendar to buy spring flowering bulbs before the end of September. Seasonal changes vary across the many climates in the United States. If you get temperatures below 40°F for extended periods of time, you can plant these [...]

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Citizen science: collaborative projects for teachers and their class

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: August 7, 2009
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I was excited to see a Monarch butterfly land on the Butterfly Bush in the yard (I hesitate to call it a garden). Does that mean that the Milkweed plant may yet become a home to Monarch caterpillars? I haven’t seen any eggs but there is still time. Maybe another insect has already staked a [...]

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Connecting to the weather

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: April 28, 2009
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Can you tell that it will rain soon by the way the air smells? Do you like the smell of snow? I like the way the air smells just as a badly needed rain begins—it makes me think of the earth exhaling as the water soaks in (but this could be a misconception on my [...]

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Classification

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: March 9, 2009
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Snack sorting! It’s an interesting way to involve students in classifying and, while sitting together to eat, there is time to talk about why certain groupings were chosen. Children might sort by shape, create an ABAB pattern, and count the number of each snack shape. Classification is the theme for the March 2009 issue of Science and [...]

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Corn ears—examine and measure

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: November 8, 2008
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“Why is corn used as a decoration in the fall in the United States?” asked a student’s grandmother. She is originally from Estonia where she said seasonal decorative include straw weavings, hung as symbols to bring a good harvest in the next year. I don’t know when it became popular to hang ears of multicolored [...]

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Sink? Float? Try it with pumpkins

By Peggy Ashbrook | Published: October 22, 2008
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For an activity to explore buoyancy—what materials and which objects sink or float in water—I gave each child in a small group an object to hold. Then I explained that we were going to think about the objects and say where we think they will come to rest in a big tub of water—at the [...]

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