KLEIN's
GUIDE TO
SCIENCE EDUCATION
PHOTO CREDIT: Nadene Klein at Tuolumne Meadows Yosemite National Park
As the semester comes to a close, it becomes more difficult to keep my students engaged. In addition, there is a challenge in finding learning activities that transition between content topics in a meaningful way. Enter the cupcake!
We study the Earth in terms of geology, geologic timeline, and weather during the first half of my Earth and Environmental science class. Then we transition to the environmental side of things for the second half of the year. Stealing from my husband's line of work, I have students consider the importance of sediment as the bridge between to the two. Sediment is a part of the Earth that shows us Earth history, but is also a metric for the health of its ecosystem. We watch some videos and discuss sediment and how it is sampled and then analyzed. Then I bake special cupcakes for a special lab activity. Each student gets their own unique lake. The white frosting representing the water which just covers the surface. I use food coloring to create 6 different batters that I randomly layer in each cupcake tin. I give students a key that shows them which color is clay, silt, debris, algae, pollen, and sand. Students generate a hypothesis of the deposition of their sediment by just doing an external examination of their lake. Looking around the shoreline and looking at the side view through the wrapper. This is drawn in the first panel of their 4 panel lab worksheet. Next they use clear drinking straws to extract 3 core sediment samples from their lake. These observations are recorded in the second panel. Based on the observations, students revise their hypothesis to form a conclusion in the third panel. At this point, they cut the cupcake in half to see the actual deposition and draw this in the 4th panel. This last step is not possible in real life, but it gives them the idea that the samples get them closer to the actual sediment formation. There are two analysis questions for them to answer. The last step...they get to eat their model. I have done this activity with my classes for the last several years and it never loses its pizzazz. Over the years, I've updated the lab worksheet and changed from this being a partner lab to being an individual one. This year I made one small but significant change. In some random cupcakes, I added candy sprinkles. Students with these discovered that their lake was contaminated!!! I'm already brainstorming how to expand on that and make this go from a two day lesson to a week long mini-project for next year. Yes, it is a lot of prep on my part to make the cupcakes. The results are profound in the engagement and learning of my students.
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AuthorNadene Klein, M.Ed. has been an educator for over 25 years. She brings a passion and love for science to the classroom and through this blog to you. Archives
March 2024
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