5th grade science

2012-2013

Mr. Dawson loves science. So does Jackson. It has been a good match.
I love science, Jackson loves having me come in and do science presentations (hope that lasts!). Mr. Dawson has been very open to having me come in and expanding on whatever they are discussing.
We hit a diverse range of topics, from Monsoons in New Mexico to levers to the periodic table (being a biologist, I naturally chose to talk about carbon, the basis of all life!).
The highlights, though, were the dry ice bubbles and the bottle rockets. The dry ice bubbles were giant soap bubbles powered by the sublimation of dry ice to a gas. Later that day I did it with my kids and the Burkman's. It was a big hit. Lachlan figured out an innovative way of popping the bubbles with a nerf gun.

For the bottle rockets, Mr. Dawson taught them about the aerodynamics of rockets and they added fins and nose cones (half a tennis ball) to their rockets. Between Mr. Dawson and I we had two very different versions of rocket launchers to compare and contrast.
For the science fair, Jackson has a fruit theme going on. Last year he made a fruit battery.

This year, he enthusiastically jumped on DNA (no I didn't pressure him into it). His enthusiasm didn't extend to taking pictures, though :).

Gobs of strawberry DNA (left) but hardly any grape DNA (right).

DNA smoothies, anyone?