Science Mysteries

    One of my favorite books for sparking inquiry in children is Everyday Science Mysteries. This series of books presents children with stories that can be read independently or as a whole class that present a problem that can be investigated through inquiry and research.  Now, like most currently published books, this book is not up to date with the NGSS standards.   That being said you can easily search through the stories and find many that will relate to your topic or strand.

    The story we looked at today was called Grandfather's Clock.  In this story a young girl is curious as to what makes the clock work and how they can adjust the pendulum so that it keeps correct time.  After reading the story the students are presented with the task to help Mary explain how to adjust the clock's pendulum.
    Today's discussion was the first of many to address the science standard 4.PS3.4.1 to build a simple device using stored energy to solve a problem.  In the process we were also able to hit the W4.2 as we wrote a procedure to test our hypothesis.  So first things first- designing our pendulum.  The book explains how to do so, or you could pre-make them to save time.  We then worked together as a class to write a hypothesis to match our essential question: How can I change the rate at which the pendulum swings?  After discussing what a hypothesis was we added the word & definition to our current "science graffiti wall".  I then asked the students to create one more hypothesis on their own to reflect what other tests we could conduct to answer our question.  Many came up with to either change the amplitude, or the length of the string.

   Now, the fun begins!  Students were sent off in groups of three to test their hypothesis and to come up with a way to organize their data.  As they were working I made some quick observations then pulled them up to group to discuss what I noticed as I walked around. This was the perfect time to launch into a discussion of variables and to examine our investigations to see what variables were being tested- and to  be sure it was only one at a time.  After clearing up how we test, hold etc the pendulum they were at it again.

   Upon our conclusion the students went back into their science journals and used the data we collected to write an answer to Mary's question.