Moon Phases, Chemical Reactions, and WWII Artifacts!
Wow, April has been a month of variety in my classroom! Sixth grade Science has been experiencing properties of matter and how they work, and seventh grade has been discovering the Sun, Earth, and Moon systems and are now moving on to the Solar System. Seventh and eighth grade elective has been learning about World War II and we had an amazing parent guest speaker that shared some priceless family artifacts from that era.
Sixth grade discovered that there are actually four states of matter in our universe, not just three. We have done several activities including one where students get to pretend to be air molecules. In the air molecule activity, I would shout out a temperature and students would have to react to that temperature as if they really were an air molecule. The colder the temperature the closer together they had to get with very little movement. The warmer the temperature the more they could spread out and the faster they could move. Needless to say, they had a lot of fun with that activity. We also did a lab called Mystery Powders. In the Mystery Powders Lab, students had seven white powders that they had to identify. The only information that I gave them was that you could find all of these ingredients in the kitchen. Students could touch, taste, smell, and combine the powders with water and vinegar. After testing these physical and chemical properties, they then wrote down their conclusions as to what they thought each substance was based on the evidence they collected.
Seventh grade got to experience Sun, Earth, and moon systems by using a lamp and styrofoam balls. We place a lamp without a shade in the middle of the room and turned off the other classroom lights. The lamp represented the Sun and the styrofoam balls were used to represent Earth, and its moon. Students were able to see how the sunlight hits Earth on their styrofoam model as well as how we receive daylight and darkness as the Earth rotates on its axis. Next, they were able to see why we have the seasons we do based off of the amount of direct sunlight hitting the Northern and Southern hemispheres of Earth as it revolves around the sun. There were a lot of “light bulb” moments for the kids as they did this activity. Finally we threw in the moon to revolve around Earth as it was going around the sun and were able to see how we have the moon phases. There were several misconceptions about how the phases of the moon occur and this really seemed to clear things up for many students.
Last but most definitely not least, seventh and eighth grade elective had a once in a lifetime memorable experience thanks to Shannon Busker. Shannon’s grandfather served in the military during World War II and was part of the invasion on Omaha Beach for Operation Overlord. During his time on that mission, he sent home several artifacts from the war. Shannon brought those items into our classroom and the students and I were in awe. The items included her grandfather’s uniform, medals, pictures, food rations, a Nazi dagger and pistol, and Nazi flags that were literally torn down from areas that our soldiers were liberating from the Nazi’s. It was truly an eerie feeling to be in the same room with flags and symbols that represented such evil during that time. Shannon’s grandfather had even torn a patch of the Nazi flag from one of the dead Nazi officer's arms, along with a pistol and self sharpening dagger that had the Nazi symbol on it. I loved the story she shared about her grandfather's homecoming. His wife knew he was on his way home but had no idea what day or week he would arrive. He came home in the middle of the night wearing the exact uniform Shannon shared with us and after being gone for almost two years, he got to see his wife and toddler daughter that he hadn’t yet met. It was all very heartfelt and it helped students to see the struggles families went through during that time. Shannon’s grandfather was awarded four bronze stars for his bravery and service during World War II. Thank you Shannon for sharing such a wonderful piece of your family’s and our nation's history!
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