Today is Wonder Wednesday, so we wanted to know, Why is it important to wash our hands? We discussed reasons why it's important to wash our hands. Many friends mentioned things like germs and sickness. We had a discussion about what germs are and how germs are spread. Many students said germs are spread by touching things without washing our hands. So, we decided to test it out for ourselves with an experiment.
Here is how we used 3 pieces of bread to find out why it is important to wash our hands.
First, we used our dirty, germy hands to touch one piece of bread.
We put that piece of bread in a baggie and labeled the baggie "Dirty Hands."
Then, we ALL washed our hands! (With soap AND water)
Then, we all touched another piece of bread with our CLEAN hands!
We took this piece of bread and put it into a baggie. We labeled the baggie "Clean Hands". We took the last piece of bread and put it into a baggie labeled "Control". I explained to our friends we need to know what the normal bread would look like when it's in a baggie as well, so we needed a "control" for our experiment.
The pieces of bread needed to be stored in a cool, dry place and I wanted to make sure everyone could see it, so we taped the baggies to the end of the cubbies.
Then, we used our Wonder Journals for the first time and we recorded our predictions for what would happen in our experiment. Some friends predicted the dirty hands bread would turn red, some predicted it would grow spots, and others predicted nothing would happen!
We will be keeping an eye on the bread to see what happens. We will post updates as we learn exactly why it is so important to wash our hands.
We may have had a short week, but that didn't stop us from learning everything we could! We had a great week and performed several fun and informative experiments, explored question and answer books, and created the script for our own informational video about our wonder: "Why Do Leaves Change Color in the Fall?"
Here we are exploring a few question and answer books:
We then began an experiment to see if we could find out more about why deciduous leaves change color in the fall.
First, we tore up our leaves.
Then, we poured them into cups and poured rubbing alcohol into the cups. We covered the cups with aluminum foil and placed them into a pan of boiling water. We left them in the boiling water for 30 minutes.
While our cups were in the boiling water, we recorded the steps we completed thus far and formed our own hypotheses.
"It will be hot and it will be black."
"I think the leaves will change colors."
"I think the leaves will turn yellow."
"The leaves will turn brown."
After our 30 minutes were up, we cut up pieces of coffee filter and left them in our cups. We were surprised to come back to schol the next day and see that the chlorophyll from the leaves traveled up the coffee filter paper!!
We researched multiple sources to create our own version of our mentor video. Here are some of our friends sharing their research. We used these facts we learned through our research to create the script for our own mentor video. We will finish the creation of our mentor video and unveil our final product next week!
We took a "Wonder Walk" to more closely observe Evergreen trees and deciduous trees. Here are a few friends sharing what they noticed was different between the two:
After we had our discussion outside, we brought Evergreen needles and decidous tree leaves back inside for a closer look.
We noticed the Evergreen needles felt different than the deciduous tree leaves. Evergreen needles felt rolled up and waxy. We also noticed that they (Evergreen needles) were still green. We wondered if this had to do with the waxy coat of the needles...
So, we began another experiment! We filled up two cups with the same amount of water and left them out overnight. We covered one cup with wax paper and left the other cup open.
The next morning, we noticed that the cup that did not have the wax paper on it had lost some water! We discussed that we think the wax paper helped keep the water in the other cup. We then made the connection that an Evergreen needle's waxy coat helps to keep the water inside the Evergreen needle and helps it stay alive through the winter.
On Thursday we teamed up with Ms. Garner's class and we conducted an experiment to see if we could stop a deciduous leaf from changing colors. We went to the wonder room and watched Ms. Garner hold up the wax paper and put our green deciduous leaf in between the pieces of wax paper. Ms. Garner went first and ironed one side of the wax paper on to the leaf for about 5 minutes.
Then it was our turn! We flipped over the leaf and ironed it for about five minutes.
My students did not like the smell of the iron on the wax paper, but they did think that it was pretty cool!
This was the end result. We are excited to see if the waxy coat on a deciduous leaf keeps the chlorophyll in like it does on an Evergreen leaf!
I hope to see you at the fall festival tonight! If not, have a WONDERFUL long weekend and I will see you on Monday.
