Geology 104 – Class Demonstration Projects

Purpose: This exercise is to show that you can

  • design, trouble-shoot and present a hands-on science activity for elementary or middle-school students
  • explain the underlying scientific principle demonstrated

What should be in your “live” presentation

  • 2-5 minute explanation of the scientific principle illustrated by the activity, including how the activity will show this:

Example: Clouds in a Soda-bottle lab

What the activity will demonstrate is two scientific processes at work in cloud formation

  1. adiabatic or expansional cooling of water vapor by changes in pressure. The lab will show this by the squeezing and releasing of the soda bottle. The releasing part represents the reduction in pressure that water vapor experiences as it rises higher in the atmosphere where the pressure is less
  2. need for a seed (condensation nucleus) for the water to start the change from a vapor to a liquid. The lab will show this by using smoke for the condensation nuclei and trying the experiment with and without the smoke.
  • Demonstration of how to set up the equipment and a run-through of the experiment itself (10-15 minutes). If the activity itself (as done by the kids) will take longer, you can present an abbreviated version.

Example: “Heating Land and Water”: show what equipment is needed and how to set it up, (e.g. explain how high to fill the cups, how to support the lights, and the ever important paper towels), let the sun shine for enough time to show a degree change or so, turn off the light (explain why it’s important to move the light away from the cups) and then show the (already completed) data table and (already drawn) graph, explaining the expected differences in land vs. water data.

  • Conclusions (1-2 minutes). Short recap of why it works, what grade-level is appropriate, any questions from the audience

Instructions:

1. Research the demonstration or lab activity. Resources include the Internet (Google, etc) the library, or other teachers (this last is most feasible if you have kids in school).Here’s a list to get you started:

(look at the related links, too)

(Rodney is my hero!!)

and there’s always Bill Nye the Science guy online somewhere….

2. General considerations

The presentation itself should take no longer than 20 minutes.