Frosting Formations

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What You Do:

Explore different land and water forms.

Learn about tectonic plates and geological activity.

Practice project planning and diagramming.

Build land and water features with frosting.

Develop presentation skills.

Recommended Lead-Up Lesson: Play-Doh Planet

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Mentos Madness

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What You Do:

Explore nucleation.

Practice developing and testing a hypothesis.

Drop Mentos into soda to see what happens!

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Rocking Rocks

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What You Do:

Learn about the rock cycle and the three rock types.

Model the processes of erosion and the rock cycle.

Use crayon shavings to make the three types of rock.

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Geodes Gems

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What You Do:

Practice developing and test hypothesis.

Learn about the formation of geodes.

Break open a geode to expose the crystal formations.

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Mining for Minerals

Flaxseed Raisin Cookies

What You Do:

Explore the difference between rocks and minerals.

Collect and evaluate observational data.

Learn about mining and how it effects the earth.

Separate the ‘mineral’ components in your rice krispie ‘rock’.

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Mystery Minerals

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What You Do:

Explore physical properties.

Gather and interpret experimental data.

Practice estimation.

Test unknown minerals to discover their identity.

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Play-Doh Planet

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What You Do:

Explore how scale models are built and used.

Learn about the layers of the earth.

Build a layered, mini-earth out of play-doh.

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Edible Model of the Sun

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What You Need:

  • Plain sugar cookies (base of the sun)
  • Plate to work on
  • Plastic knives
  • Frosting (surface)
  • Short pieces of twizzler strips (prominences)
  • Yellow and red sprinkles (granular appearance of surface
  • Mini chocolate chips (sun spots)

 
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Solar System Orbits

What You Need:

  • Glass bows with lids
  • Marbles of different sizes
  • Yellow construction paper
  • Scissors
  • Tape
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Scale Model of the Solar System


Adapted from http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/

What You Need:

  • a yoga ball (the sun)
  • other sized balls to represent planets
  • planet size/distance calculations

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