Read the scripted activity and identify the strategies being used to engage children in each of the five steps of the scientific method.

Scenario 1: Read the scripted activity and identify the strategies being used to engage children in each of the five steps of the scientific method. Scenario 2: Generate at least two statements/questions for specific steps. 

Scenario 1: During lunch, a child talks about the Jell-O he made with his family the night before. The teacher  then developed an activity based on this conversation.

Prior to the lesson, the teacher mixes up some water with gelatin and passes out small cups to students.

Teacher:  Is the water with the gelatin mixture that you have in your cup a solid or a liquid? 

Child:           Liquid!

Teacher:  That’s right—it is a liquid. Things like water that need a container to have a shape are liquids. What shape is the cup that the water is in?

Child:   My cup is a circle. 

Teacher:  Your cup is a circle, that’s right! How could we change the shape of the water?

Child 1:        The Jell-O can get hard and then we can cut it. 

Child 2:        Sometimes we make Jell-O stars at my house. 

Teacher:  That’s true—once the Jell-O is hard, we can cut it into different shapes. What about when it is still a liquid? How can we change its shape? 

Teacher passes out various containers of different shapes (e.g., shallow rectangular and square containers) and allows the children to pour their water mixed with gelatin into the different containers. 

Teacher:  What shape is the water now? Did it change shapes?

Child 1:       My water is in the square. 

Teacher:  Good—your water is now the shape of a square. What would happen if we didn’t pour the water into a container? 

Child:           It would spill all over!

Teacher:  It would spill all over and it would no longer have a shape. Remember things like water that are liquids need a container to have a shape. Let’s see what happens when we put our water mixed with gelatin into the refrigerator. Lesson continues after the Jell-O gets hard and teacher discusses with children the differences between liquids and solids.

Scenario 

During center time, the teacher joins a group of children at the sand table. She gathers plastic containers of varying shapes, sizes, and volume to create an experiment. Using the scientific method, the children learn how much sand the different containers hold and then compare the different amounts among the containers.