6th Grade Frog Dissection and 5th Grade Car Engineering

6th Grade Science-Frog Dissection to learn about anatomy

I had the pleasure to work with Ms. Strobl and the 6th grade science classes for the hands on frog anatomy lab.  Very rarely do children get an opportunity to do animal dissection and learn about the external and internal anatomy.  It is a natural progression to first do skeleton investigation in owl pellets in 4th grade.  Students then go onto dissecting squid in 6th grade and then do the frog dissection.  Children are such curious and adventurous learners that it makes sense to introduce hands on biology at this age.  Students learn about themselves as well since we talk about the various organs as the students identify the parts of the frogs.  Such a great lab!

5th Grade Car Engineering Lab

Mrs. Boucher's class piloted a 2 day engineering class before the holidays.  Mrs. Boucher wanted her class to design vehicles that could transport the client (Barbie) 15 feet to land on a target with her shoes intact.  She could not be attached to the vehicle so students had to encapsulate her so that she could be easily removed. It sound easy but it was really challenging to get the vehicles to land on the target.  Students were presented with an array of materials including motors, balloons, etc.  By the end of the lab, it was clear to see that keeping it simple and utilizing the different forces worked best.  Some students utilized wind from a fan or made rubber band catapults.  Many ideas changed during the test and redesign phase.