science fair for students at grade 4

Teacher Notes for Science Project! Grade 4

This program deals with demonstration and experimental type science projects only. Most students should be encouraged to try and do an experiment, however, those with undeveloped problem-solving skills will be more successful by choosing a demonstration. The following example lesson plan will help you to successfully integrate the video into your science fair assignment.

Before showing the program:

Discuss different types of science projects and identify each as a model, collection, demonstration, or experiment. Models could include: Volcanoes, Solar System, Earth, Moon, Sea Floor, or Clay Insects. Collections could be of: Leaves, Rocks, Sand, Bark, Insects, or Roots. Demonstrations could explain how anything works, from motors to elevators to the human ear. Demonstrations can also explain why something happens the way it does. Examples include: What makes clouds?, Why the wind blows, or What causes waves?

Experiments involve collecting data to answer a question. Examples of experiments are: Which candle is the best buy?, What type of string works best in a string telephone?, Does a magnet help a plant to grow better?, How fast does a snail travel?, or Which material is the best insulator?

Review some of the important rules to follow and introduce some of the experimental methods. Most importantly, each plan should be approved by the teacher before the student begins his/her project. When doing an experiment, the problem should be clearly stated as a question. Each student should learn as much as possible about their topic before beginning the experiment. From the research, they should predict what they think will happen. This is called a hypothesis. The next step is to collect the equipment and materials, do the experiment, write down all the results, then look at the results and from them, form the conclusion. The conclusion should answer their original question. Once they complete their experiment, they will check to see if their hypothesis, or original guess, was correct. It is quite acceptable if it was incorrect! Remind your students to think about these things while they watch the program.

Show the video program (20 min.)

Discuss or try some of the projects shown on the program.

The best way to teach experimental methods is to try some experiments in class. After you show the video, we recommend you try some of the experiments you saw. See if your results agree with those found on the video. You could discuss the ice melting demonstration and how it could be turned into an experiment with different weights (How Does Weight Affect the Melting Of Ice?). If you try it, remember to keep everything the same except the weights. Some discussion topics could include: Can we use the same ice cube for our experiment? (Ans: Most people would say no, but if we could make an extra long rectangular cube and place three wire/weight combos on it at once, we would effectively remove the variable of using different ice cubes. If we use different ice cubes, we should use cubes from the same tray and the same freezer (ice from different freezers will be at different temperatures). What if we tried it in two different rooms...could we make a fair comparison? When trying this experiment, you could use a one gallon milk bottle as the weight. By varying the amount of water in the container, you can vary the weight. Tie a single loop of thin wire (piano wire works well) to the container and place the ice cube on a narrow piece of wood spanning two desks. Explain what's happening: Pressure changes the melting point of ice, and as pressure increases, the melting point decreases (occurs at temperatures below 0 degrees C). Since the ice cube itself is at a temperature below 0 degrees C, the melted water above the wire will re-freeze. You should notice that although the wire can slice through the ice cube, it will not cut the ice into two smaller pieces! This experiment could also be tried outside on a very cold day or in a freezer (temp < 0 degrees C) to illustrate that it is pressure, not room temperature, that is causing the ice to melt. When an ice skater takes to the rink, it is the weight of the skater on the thin metal blades of the skates that also causes ice to melt. The skater is actually moving on a very thin film of water under the blades! A variation of this experiment would be to test different thicknesses of wire (and keep the weight constant).

Another experiment to try is the diaper test. Tori and Shea found that Pampers was the best, followed by Huggies and Lady Lee. Would we expect to find the same results? If not, could some Pampers be less absorbent than others? To check this, we would try more than one of each brand. This should help to explain the importance of a large sample size. If Pampers beat the others three out of three times, would we be more confident in our results? Note also that this experiment demonstrated the effectiveness of absorbing water only. What about other liquids (Pepsi, milk or you know...)?

Kristi used apples to test the effectiveness of Merthiolate and found that it kills germs and kept the apple from spoiling. Does this mean that it will kill germs on our skin? (Ans: No, but from this experiment we would hypothesize that it would!). What would we have to do to find out?

Evaluate James' results with the bubble soap. He used the same size bottles, added soap solution from the same stock container, put the same amount of soap in each container, added equal amounts of the test chemical into each (ie: food color, vinegar, olive oil, etc.) and blew bubbles into each with a straw until they came to the top of the container. He then let them sit and recorded the time that the bubbles lasted. His control (only soap) lasted 54 sec., with food color it was 36 sec., vanilla 42, lemon juice 51, glue 53, vinegar 59, olive oil 66, and glycerol 71 sec. If you tried this, would you expect to get similar results? (Ans: Yes, if we used James' equipment, solutions, and same amounts of test chemicals.) If we used larger bottles, for example, our results would probably give us longer times, but the conclusions might still be the same (food color worst, glycerol best).

Questioning your students on experimental methods is very valuable! It encourages them to think and learn how to properly solve problems. These skills will be extremely valuable throughout life. Finally, when it's time for your students to pick their project, encourage them to spend time thinking of a good topic. Be creative and try not to do a project shown on the video.