Documenting Action

Liam and Leo brought in forms of documentation from their own lives.  Leo's parents have saved all sorts of mementos from Leo's life, and Liam has begun his own diary!

Using the app Explain Everything to make our thinking visible

We have been exploring and discovering lots in regard to capacity. Today we were given different capacity challenges from which to choose, and working together in partners, we solved the problems with hands-on exploration. We then used the app "Explain Everything" to make our thinking visible. We have been working with this app and with technology in general to make our thinking visible as it's a great way to capture and share our thoughts.

Check out Shayna and Masrur's Explain Everything video below. They realized after the fact that their drawings were not being recorded, but their verbal explanation is quite detailed and shows mastery of the material. The challenge problem they chose was:

Earth Day

Today AISD celebrated Earth Day, which started by walking to school. Kindergarten joined 2nd grade students and parents in a walking school bus from Gulshan 2 into Baridhara, and the turnout was impressive. See the short clip below of our group in Gulshan, but keep in mind that many more met us as we entered Baridhara. Thanks to all who joined in!

This morning we also had an all-school assembly in which we learned more about ways we are harming our environment, followed by ways in which we can help keep our planet healthy. Class 2L has been working diligently to collect data on single-use plastic water bottles and has been taking action to spread the word about why single-use plastic water bottles are incredibly harmful to our planet. Please take a moment to watch the video they created to raise awareness:

2L's action inspired us all to be more aware of the waste we create, especially in regard to our consumption of single-use plastic water bottles. Thanks to their action we were given very exciting news when Mr. Boerner, our superintendent, announced that AISD will now officially ban the use of single-use plastic water bottles on campus. Thank you, 2L, for inspiring us all to take action to make lasting change!

Scientists Hypothesize and Test

We recently did an experiment that forced us to hypothesize and observe like scientists, and then to use our growing knowledge of matter to understand what we were seeing. It began by hypothesizing what would happen if six raisins were placed in a cup of water:

After observing for a while we saw that the raisins sank to the bottom of the cup and then did not move unless we shook the cup.

Next we observed soda water for a while. We noticed that the soda water was different in that it contained gas that continually tried to "escape" by coming to the surface of the water and then releasing into the surrounding air. We asked ourselves the same question: What would happen when we place six raisins into the soda water? We recorded our hypotheses and then tested and observed:

Wow!!! The raisins seemed to "jump"! Why did this happen? We observed that the gas in the water lifted up the raisins, and when they reached the surface of the water, the bubbles popped, and down went the raisins!

This experiment led to a lot of further questioning and experimenting. One wondering that was brought forth by many was what would happen if the soda water was left out for a day? Would the raisins still "jump" when placed inside? 

We used our growing knowledge and understanding of matter and how it behaves to hypothesize. To make our thinking visible, we put our thoughts into speech bubbles for all to see:

And what did we find out? NO! The raisins sank to the bottom and rested there. We quickly determined that the soda water's gas had mostly all "escaped" and it therefore contained nothing that would help the raisins "jump".

You can easily perform this experiment at home and watch for yourself!