Yesterday, we went over to my friend Patchfire’s house house so that Captain Science could have his first physics lab lesson with Patchfire’s daughter, Eclectic Girl. The goal of the day was the figure out how Eclectic Girl and Cpt. Science work together — does one give the other the answers? is one taking the lead in all the experiments? do they squabble when the pressures of labwork are applied? — and to give EG and Cpt. S a feel for what physical labs will be like. And yes, our 4th graders are doing physics.
They wrapped aluminum foil around batteries and lit up lightbulbs. Had this activity happened in a public school classroom, they might have been lucky to have one battery and lightbulb to share between them, and they certainly would have had a stringent set of rules about what was and was not acceptable for the experiment. Patchfire gave them the directions and the supplies (including a large stack of batteries) and set them free with minimal interference — guidance, but no hand-holding. The result was that our somewhat gawky little scientists figured it out in short order, in their own way, in their own time. So refreshing!
Captain Science is currently doing the “homework” Patchfire assigned him, which was to finish the lesson sheets. He’s currently trying to describe in detail how one would go about making a lightbulb light with nothing but aluminum foil, Scotch tape, and a battery.
SCIENCE! ENGERGY! SCIENCE! ENGERY! Snaaaaaaake Eeeeeeeyes…
I accidentally conducted an experiment in which a pocketful of South African five-cent pieces and a battery were transformed into a pocketful of dangerously hot South African coins and an equally warm battery. Does it count as an experiment if you don’t know you’re doing it at the time?
That sounds like a fascinating, if dangerous, unintentional experiment. What kind of battery was it and what’s the composition of the coins? I think U.S. coins don’t actually have enough conductive metal in them these days to turn into a battery-powered pocket fireball.
You make me laugh