Tag Archives: Educator How-To

Educator How-To: Making the Moon out of Cheese (and Crackers!)

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Teach your students about the phases of the moon with this awesome Solar System snacking activity.

I created this lesson plan as an alternative to the Oreo™ phases of the moon activity that we think is so clever. This science snack is a healthier alternative and will satisfy hungry students without the sugar rush.

Educator How-To: Making the Moon out of Cheese (and Crackers!)

Moon worksheet

Materials:

  • Ritz™ Crackers
  • American cheese slices
  • 1.5 inch round “cookie” cutter
  • Phases of the moon chart
  • Phases of the Moon worksheet
  • Markers
  • Waxed paper
  • Plastic knives

Educator How-To: Making the Moon out of Cheese (and Crackers!)

Moon phases

Procedure:

  1. Give each child a copy of the phases of the moon chart.  Go over the different phases, and consider using our Educator How-To: We’ll See You on the Dark (and Light and Far) Side of the Moon to demonstrate the phases in an active, hands-on fashion.
    2.    Distribute one slice of American cheese to each student.
    3.    Instruct students to carefully use the circular cutter to cut four circles from the cheese. With careful placement, one slice of cheese will be sufficient.
    4.    Using a plastic knife, students will then cut one circle of cheese in half.
    5.    The second circle will be cut using the circular “cookie” cutter.  Place the cutter carefully on the circle of cheese so that a crescent-shaped piece of cheese is cut from one side.
    6.    The same procedure should be used to cut an additional crescent-shaped piece from the third circle of cheese.
    7.    The fourth circle will remain whole.
    8.    Now you are ready to go! Distribute the Phases of the Moon worksheets and have students place a Ritz™ cracker on each “moon”.
    9.    Students will now arrange the cheese on the crackers to reflect each phase of the moon.
    10.    When finished, students may eat the tasty moon snack!

Educator How-To: Build your own personal hovercraft

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A hovercraft may look like some high-tech alien vehicle, but the concepts behind its inner workings are really quite simple. Building a hovercraft is an excellent way to investigate the principles of air pressure, friction, lift, thrust, and drag and serves as an excellent motivator for hands-on discovery — for even the most reluctant of learners.

A hovercraft is an ACV (air cushion vehicle) that rides on a pillow of slightly pressurized air. The hovercraft sports a skirt around its perimeter designed to contain air generated by a fan, or in the case of our craft, a repurposed leaf blower.

Build your own hovercraft!The air contained by the skirt in turn creates a cushion that lifts the hovercraft a small distance off the ground. Note: The weight a hovercraft can lift is easily calculated by multiplying the cushion pressure by the area of the craft.

Once lift is achieved, the craft uses directed air to create a forward thrust, allowing the vehicle to be forwardly mobile. A typical hovercraft creates this forward thrust using a propeller or propellers that push air toward the back of the vehicle. Using the principles of lift and thrust, as explained above, the hovercraft operates much like an airplane.

Build your own hovercraft!Now that the craft has forward momentum, it must be steered. Steering is achieved in various ways, depending on vehicle design. A system of rudders placed behind the fan may be used to direct air in different directions, allowing the vehicle the freedom to turn.  This configuration is similar to the mechanism used to steer some boats. Other hovercrafts use subtle shifts in the operator’s body weight to steer, a skill that takes practice to master.

The Museum’s simplified hovercraft was constructed by our own Carolyn Leap using a collection of ideas with a few modifications:

•    Rounded off corners on a square of plywood in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle – a circle of plywood is an even better option for reducing weight.
•    We sought help from the Exhibits Department to cut a hole to accommodate an unusually shaped leaf-blower outlet.
•    We used a plastic tablecloth completely reinforced with duct tape because the plastic seemed inadequate on its own.
•    Reinforced the skirt’s attachment by stapling AND taping around the edges.
•    Added pool noodles (split along one side) instead of pipe insulation as a bumper
•    Added duct tape flaps (sticky sides together) and attached them around the perimeter of the nozzle to create a more effective seal to improve lift.

This hovercraft is used in the Museum’s Xplorations Summer Camp Programs to illustrate various physics concepts. Our hovercraft does not create its own forward thrust and has no steering mechanism, so the craft and rider are guided by the instructor. Take a look at the fun pictures of one of our campers, Noah, as he rides on a pillow of pressurized air!

Build your own hovercraft!For instructions on how to build your own hovercraft, click here.

Sciencebuddies.org and Wired.com have some great additional info. See you same time, same place next month!

Educator How-to: Teach archaeology with edible excavation

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It’s time, once again, for our monthly Educator How-To! Today we’ll help you teach kids to keep track of what they find — just like an archaeologist does.

Archaeologists keep careful records, as do all scientists. One important way to keep track of their work is by mapping where each artifact is discovered. Show your students how to plot artifact locations onto a grid with this tasty activity!

Materials
• Large chocolate chip cookies with lots of chips
• Toothpicks – 1 box
• Waxed paper sheets
• Cookie grid
• Markers
• Masking tape
• Ziploc baggies – 1 per child

Screen shot 2012-07-26 at 7.40.37 PMA printable cookie grid just for you

Procedure

1. Tell the students that they are going to be excavating a chocolate chip cookie. And just like a real archaeologist, they must record where each “artifact” is found. In addition, they must be as careful as possible to get each “artifact” out of the “dig site” with the least amount of damage.

2. Supply each student with a cookie, a piece of waxed paper, a toothpick, a pencil, and a cookie grid worksheet.

3. Students should carefully draw a grid on their cookie using a black marker. It should match the grid on the worksheet cookie as closely as possible.

4. Students should then carefully excavate the “artifacts” out of the cookie trying to cause as little damage to the “artifact” (the chips) or the “dig site” (the cookie).

5. When they retrieve an “artifact,” they must assign it a number and plot it on the cookie grid. When an “artifact” is removed, it should be put on a small piece of masking tape and numbered.

6. Give each child a baggie to put all of their “artifacts” in.

7. When the time is up for this activity, count each child’s “artifacts” and look at the condition of their “dig site” to determine the most successful archaeologist for the day.

While we are working with cookies here, we do not advise eating the dig site or munching on your priceless artifacts — extra cookies are recommended!

Educator How-To: Teaching taxonomy with simple sorting exercises

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It’s time, once again, for our monthly Educator How-To! Today we’ll help you teach kids to classify and categorize.

Objective: To gain a basic understanding of taxonomy by practicing sorting and classification skills.

Materials:
Bags of assorted plastic animals
Index cards
Markers

plastic-jungle-animals

Preparation: The beauty of this activity is that it takes very little teacher preparation!

Separate your class into groupings of no more than four children. Have the children collect small plastic animals from their homes to contribute to the project; they should all have them at the bottom of a toy box. Each group should have at least 20 animals, of any kind, that will all fit into a large zipping freezer bag.

Procedure:

1.    Working in groups, students will separate all the animals in the taxonomy bag into groups by identifying the various similarities the animals have in common. An example of this first grouping would be animals that have legs and animals that have fins. There are many ways to go about the first grouping; encourage each team to go with what makes sense to them.
2.    Next, the groupings are made smaller by sorting a second time. For example, you can separate by animals that have six legs or animals that have four legs.
3.    The teams should explore the many different ways they can sort and categorize the animals.
4.    When a team comes up with system with which they are satisfied, they should write a short, descriptive note card for each group of animals.
5.    The group will explain to the class how and why they sorted the animals in the manner they chose.

Background:

The taxonometric system of organism classification and organization is based upon the similarities between organisms. Carl Linnaeus, a biologist, is credited with the invention of this system of choosing standard scientific names for every organism. He chose Latin as the language to be used in this process.

Carolus_Linnaeus_(cleaned_up_version)

Carl Linnaeus, the creator of the Binomial Naming System.

These are scientific names, not the common names that people use day to day. You may call your pet a cat or a dog, but the scientific name for your dog is Canis familiarus.  A scientist that doesn’t speak your language would understand which animal you are speaking of if you use the taxonomic, or scientific, name.

Linnaeus’ Binomial Naming System is employed to provide the scientific name for each organism. This system provides a two-part name for each organism based upon the genus and species of that particular organism. The first part of the name is the genus and the second the species. Homo sapiens, for example, is the name given humans in the Binomial Naming System.