What is Science?

At first...children came to the consensus that science was space, potions, and explosions. Then, a few quiet voices started saying things like, "animals?" "weather?"

We learned that science is the study of...well, anything! We talked about how baking is science and how math is a science (the study of numbers). We discussed how science involves predicting, observing, and asking more questions. We came to the conclusion this week that we were scientists because we often study things and predict, observe, and ask questions.

On Friday, we did an experiment to focus on observations. We learned about the five senses and investigated a cup of mysterious "rocks."

First, we smelled, looked, and felt the "rocks" and recorded our observations on chart paper. Then we went back to our desks and tasted, smelled, listened, and felt them!

We wrote down what we felt, tasted, smelled, and heard and put them on the chart paper...

We got so excited about our observations that we used them to help us learn about similes in Writer's Workshop. We practiced talking about comparing two things with "like" or "as."

We know that science means to PREDICT, OBSERVE, and ASK MORE QUESTIONS. So after our experiment focused around observations, the scientists were buzzing with  more questions. Some of them knew about Pop Rocks (the mystery material), but we all still had a lot of ideas and questions.

The 2nd Grade Scientists asked:

 "How do they pop?"

Some of them thought water made them pop. I tossed some on the ground (sorry custodians) and stepped on them. The Pop Rocks exploded and crackled.

They were all shocked! They thought and thought.

"Maybe it's a pocket of air and the water melts it down to the air bubble so it'll pop. When you step on it, you make the bubble pop too."

"How do you know?"

"Balloons are filled with air and then they pop when you squeeze them."

"How do you know they're filled with air?"

Again, they thought and thought. 

"Maybe because soda is filled with air and it fizzes, it's like that."

This conversation continued going around and around and we still weren't done talking about it by the end of the day!

To close - we realized that science is never-ending. It's a cycle that keeps going with the production of more questions, testing, observations, and predictions. Next week, we're going to take the next step and figure out how Pop Rocks pop and if they are filled with air. Some scientists were developing plans during indoor recess and Quiet Time to experiment and figure out the answers to these questions.