Guide Entry 09.03.10

Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute

Fluid Thinking about Liquids and Solids, by Stephanie J. Sheehan

Guide Entry to 09.03.10:

Would you like your students to get excited about science? Would you like them to understand and use the scientific method and create delicious foods in your classroom? This unit is for you! Students will learn about states of matter as they make mayonnaise, chocolate sauce, and gelatinous fruit mold, as well as bread, right in your classroom. These activities will develop critical thinking skills, make the science curriculum more exciting for students, and encourage students to make connections between school science and real life.

The unit will consist of two main sections. The first section will provide various opportunities for students to sort and observe various properties of solids, then to do the same for liquids. The second section will provide hands-on experiments to challenge some of the generalizations they may have made during the first section. The experiments will help students to understand how liquids and solids react under certain circumstances. They will understand how energy affects matter and they will begin to understand how the movement of molecules affects the materials we see, touch and eat. The unit includes an annotated list of second-grade reading material for students to learn from and respond to.

(Recommended for Science, grade 2)

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