Science is a challenge to teach, but nothing excites students and displays scientific principles better than hands-on experiments. There are thousands of classroom experiments available to teachers, limited only by your imagination, budget and the age of your students. Choosing the perfect experiment has everything to do with the lesson you want to teach and whether you think your students can successfully perform the given steps.
Lemon Battery
Pick up one lemon, a few inches of insulated wire, some sandpaper and a basic voltmeter. You will also need one steel nail, one zinc-plated nail and a knife for stripping the wire. If you want each group to perform the experiment, multiply the supplies list by the number of groups in your class. Strip the wires before class time. Have each group sand the bottom of a nail and the copper wire, then insert both into the lemon as close together as possible. Students can then use the leads on the voltmeter to read the electric output of the lemon. Switch nails and retest to see how different nails affect the output.
Floating an Egg
It is much easier to float when the liquid around you is denser than you are. This is why you will find it easier to float in the ocean than a freshwater lake -- the salt makes the ocean water dense and increases your buoyancy. You can demonstrate this principle with a simple experiment. Provide each group in your class with a large bowl, an egg and a container of salt. Ask the students to fill the bowls with water and test whether the egg floats. Students can then mix salt in with the water until the egg floats. Have students record the differences in an experiment journal.
Build a Volcano
Building a volcano is one of the most common elementary science experiments, and most adults probably remember building a volcano at some point in their school studies. You can pass this tradition on to your students with relatively little fuss. Start by helping your students to make papier mache volcanoes. You can make them at the beginning of the day as an art project; they should be dry enough to use after lunch. Place empty film containers into each of the volcanoes. Drop in a couple of spoonfuls of baking soda, a little dishwashing soap, and some red and yellow food coloring. Have your students toss in an ounce of vinegar to set off their eruption.
Light Spectrum
Light is not actually white, but is made up of a variety of colors that cannot be seen by the naked eye. People interpret color by seeing light reflected off surfaces. Show your students the full spectrum of light by splitting the Sun's rays up with a simple project. Take a small pan and fill it with water, leaving about a third of the pan empty. Place this pan in direct sunlight. Place a small mirror under the surface, pointed at the Sun. Take a white sheet of paper and catch the reflection of the mirror -- you should be able to see a rainbow-like effect on the page. This is the light being refracted into its component colors.
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