This week in STEM Science all classes will be focusing their learning on scientific tools, tools used by scientists, and what they are used for. Students will be watching videos, have books read to them, and playing games about scientific tools. They will also be seeing some of the real items and having to identify them by name. It is important that Agents of Science learn the scientific tools by name as we will be using quite a few of these throughout the year in our different experiments and investigations. (Do you know the different between an experiment and an investigation? I suppose this is the topic for my next blog post!)
One game that I like to play with the intermediate students (3rd through 5th graders) is called Quiz-Quiz-Trade where each student has a card with a picture of a scientific tool on the back and the description of the tool on the front. They mingle around the room while music is played. Once the music stops, the students stop moving and go to their nearest elbow partner to match up. They listen for the directions of who is going to go first (like the person whose birthday comes first in the year), then they take turns quizzing each other about the descriptions of the scientific tools. Once they are finished quizzing each other, they thank the person for working with them, trade cards, then move on once the music has started again.
Some of the games we will play are:
Other videos about scientific tools that we will be watching include videos from Discovery Education Streaming Videos service.
