A week of fun, science and wonder was filled throughout our week in Jasper. Our little scientists dived into the world of exploration via microscopic discoveries and were exploring the transitional properties of matter, as they pertained to the transformative aspects of liquids and solids.
We began our week by exploring colors and the different mixtures that we could create. Our friend’s curiosities regarding this topic lead to a discussion on what would occur when the colors melted together. Thus a new idea was formed in which we used a star bucket to add and freeze different materials in different colors. In this week long process, every day we added a new color and watched the development of our multidimensional star. Next week, we hope to unveil the finished project and to discuss more regarding the different states of matter and the ways in which they change. We hope to explore the solid form and then watch it turn back into a liquid as we melt it. In addition, the color mixing process occurs simultaneously which will be a delight to witness.
Our other focus was in terms of magnification properties. On Wednesday, our friends were full of excitement when they discovered that we would be looking through microscopes. Teacher Neha took small groups of friends into the eatery to get an in-depth look into how microscopes worked and how they helped us to see objects that are not visible to the naked eye. We discussed how the microscope had different focal lengths and how these different lenses allowed us to zoom into the objects we were viewing. In our experiment, we sadly had no slides so we got creative and used the methods of trial and error to try to create our own slides. After many attempts to view objects through different mediums, we came to the conclusion that grains of materials in-between clear tape would give us the best results. We then brainstormed for ideas regarding what materials we could procure, we ventured out into the yard to collect dirt and bark. We scooped up some sand from our sand table and then proceeded to the eatery to test out edible granules such as salt, tea leaves and pepper. Soon the children were engrossed in their scientific discoveries, exchanging slides and exclaiming in wonderment at how different lens added to different perspectives. Owen was viewing some dirt when he suddenly yelled, “Wow everything looks so different when it’s bigger, I can see everything.” Lucas replied to this by saying “yes everything does look different, what other things could we use to look under the microscope?” This led us to create a whole list of objects that our friends were curious about, and so on. Friday, Owen surprised all of his friends by bringing a variety of slides from his microscope at home. We hope to continue discovering more regarding magnificational properties in the coming weeks.
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend! See you all on Monday!
