National Network for Child Care's Connections
Newsletter
Carole L. Eller, M.A.
Extension Educator
4-H Youth Development
University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension
Copyright/Access Information
Providing science experiences is one of the goals of many child
care programs. Children are natural scientists - they love to
explore and ask questions. You can extend their natural curiosity
by incorporating scientific experiments into your program.
Ideas for experiments can come from anywhere. Suppose you are
eating peanut butter on crackers. Why does the peanut butter always
stick to the roof of your mouth? A good topic for experimentation.
Or suppose a child accidentally drops a raisin in a glass of soda
pop. Why does it float? Another good question! Encourage children
to follow the scientific process to get the answer.
An experiment is a controlled action completely set up by one
person or a group. You - the experimenter - make observations,
ask questions, develop hypotheses, design a way of testing your
ideas, record the results, draw conclusions, and share what you
have learned with others.
The experimenter must follow a set of steps called the "scientific
process." This is how one group followed the scientific process
to understand why raisins float in soft drinks.
ASK QUESTIONS AND MAKE OBSERVATIONS. Choose a topic and
ask a question that you are curious about. Look for clues by talking
to people, reading books, or by making direct observations and
measurements. If you wish, use instruments to help you, and record
what you observe in a log book.
For example:
Question: Why do raisins float in soft drinks?
Observation: When someone put raisins in a glass of soda pop, they floated, but in a glass of water they sank. Soft drinks are different from water because they have flavorings, sugar, and carbonated water.
MAKE A PREDICTION AND FORM A HYPOTHESIS. A hypothesis
is an educated guess. Use your observations to predict or guess
an answer. You might need to make more observations. Write a statement
about what you think will happen in a way that can be tested.
For example:
Prediction: I think the carbonation in the soft drink forms gas bubbles that attach to the raisins and cause them to float.
Hypothesis: Raisins will float in carbonated soda but not in flat soda.
DEVELOP A PROCEDURE FOR TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESIS. Think of an experiment to test your idea, and write down all the tools and steps you will need. Scientists try to change only one thing at a time so that they can see the effects of each change, and they repeat the same experiment several times.
Materials:
3 cups of flat soda
3 cups of carbonated soda
36 raisins
paper and pencil
Procedure:
A. Measure one cup each of flat and carbonated soda.
B. Put six raisins in each.
C. Write down the number of raisins that floated to the top.
D. Repeat this two more times.
RECORD YOUR RESULTS. Accurately recording the facts or evidence that you see without guessing.
Results:
Date:
Investigators:
Brand of soda:
Temperature:
Number of floating raisins per cup of soda
Trial 1: - flat soda - carbonated soda
Trial 2: - flat soda - carbonated soda
Trial 3: - flat soda - carbonated soda
Observations: Small bubbles appeared on the raisins in both the carbonated soda and the flat soda. There were more bubbles on the raisins in the carbonated soda than on the raisins in the flat soda.
LOOK AT THE RESULTS AND DRAW CONCLUSIONS. Look at all the information, and explain what it means. What did you learn? Did your results raise any new questions? Even if your hypothesis was incorrect, you may discover something completely unexpected from your research.
Conclusions: None of the raisins floated in the flat soda, but most of them floated in the carbonated soda. Small bubbles appeared on all raisins, but more in the carbonated soda. It appears that the gas bubbles in the carbonated soda do cause raisins to float and that the hypothesis is supported.
REPORT YOUR FINDINGS. Write a paper, give a speech,
or create a display to show others what you did. Displays set
up in an area where parents arrive each day are a wonderful way
to show parents what you are doing in your child care program.
In "Dispositions as Educational Goals," Lilian Katz
talks about the importance of encouraging the development of dispositions
in children as distinguished from knowledge, skills, and feelings.
Dr. Katz defines dispositions as habits of mind or tendencies.
You can help develop children's dispositions to investigate, to
hypothesize, and to experiment through the opportunities you make
available, and by modeling these same dispositions in your actions.
Katz, L. G. (1993). Dispositions as educational goals. *ERIC
Digest.* Urbana, IL: ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early
Childhood Education. EDO-PS-93-10.
FORMAT AVAILABLE:: Internet
DOCUMENT REVIEW::
Level 3 - National Peer Review
DOCUMENT SIZE:: 28K or 4 pages
ENTRY DATE:: March 1996
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