Does Fruit Have Feelings?
This post is a continuation of our previous water and rice experiments. The experiment is completely a product of child wonder and curiosity. After we spoke to rice for 30 days and saw the changes, the students wanted to try fruit, and they voted on blueberries. So that everyone was a part of the experiment, I put the blueberries in a baggy and put that baggy inside of a Wal-Mart sack to prevent leakage. Then I passed the bag around so that all of the students could have a turn squashing the berries inside the bag. Next, I put about a half of a cup of squished berries in three different clean jars and sealed them. With masking tape, one jar was labeled “LOVE” and the other jar was labeled “HATE”. A third jar was left blank as our control group. The children made predictions about what they thought would happen to each jar. Every day without prompting as the students would leave class, they would say, “I love you” to the love jar and “I hate you” to the hate jar. The blank jar sat by itself without being spoken to.
After 30 school days of speaking to the jars, we opened them…duh…dum…
So what do you think happened? Now, if you have been following the other two experiments, you may have an idea of what happened. The love and hate jars smelled distinctly different. The love jar smelled like sweet wine. The hate jar smelled more like vinegar. Of course, all of the jars had started a fermentation process. In fact, the jars had fermented so much that when I opened the lid it was pressurized to some degree and hard to open. There was actually a blue-grayish fog that came out of the love and hate jars when they were opened. The jar that had no name didn’t have a fog and neither was the smell very strong like the love and hate jars.
What explains all of this? Now, I can’t explain it, but there is something powerful about words and your students will figure this out after doing any of these experiments. This could lead to such a powerful discussion about talking to others in a kind way.
What do you think we did next? Well, I had one student who wanted to know what would happen if we started saying “I love you” to the hate jar and “I hate you” to the love jar. We did this for 30 school days with the same jars and same berries. We relabeled the jars with “hate” tape over the “love” tape and “love” tape over the “hate” tape.
(suspense building music plays here)…We opened the jars again after 30 school days of talking to the jars. I predicted that the jars would change and the love jar would turn the hate berries into smelling sweeter and the hate jar would turn the love berries into smelling more sour…BUT this isn’t what happened. The jars actually smelled the same.
What should we try next?
How to Set Up an IKnowIt Account (free)!
Guess what?! Have you heard about this great new math website?! There are math lessons set up for kindergarten through 5th grade. Students are given a score for problems they get right so that you could potentially use this for a quick grade. Winning! Right now you can set up an account for your class absolutely free–until August 2018 that is! In the following video, I show you how to set up your free account and how to assign lessons to your students.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBRhU2-Rnn0[/embedyt]
Does Water Have Feelings? {Science Experiment}
Well, it may not have feelings, but it responds when you talk to it. If you have been following my blog at all, you will know that in the fall we did an experiment with rice jars. We said, “I love you” to one, and “I hate you to another”. Then we let one jar just sit as our control group. If you want to read more about the rice jar experiment, go here.
After that experiment, it made kids become curious about what would happen if we repeated the same experiment, but with different items such as fruit or water. Well, we did repeat the experiment with water and repeated another experiment with blueberries. This post will be about what happened with the water experiment if you want to repeat it in your classroom or at home for that matter.
First we took three jars of exactly the same size and put the same amount of spring water in each one. I used spring water because I have a water cooler in my room. Then we put exactly 1 cup of water in each jar. We made a jar to say “I love you” to, a jar to say “I hate you” to, and a jar with no label that was just to sit as our control group. The kids in the classroom talked to the jars every day for 30 school days before they left the room. The jars just sat over the weekend, and they just sat if we had a day out of school. The students picked the jars up when they talked to them, but for the most part didn’t really pick up the control group jar.
Below, I put these against black construction paper so you could really tell the difference in the three.
Ironically, our 30 days ended on Valentine’s Day, so we opened the jars on February 14th. The control group jar just smelled like water and the water was very clear. The love jar didn’t have a really detectable smell to me but one of the kids said it smelled like cut grass. It was a little whiter in color than the control group water, but not very much. The love jar looked very similar to the control group. Next the big difference was in the hate jar. We could easily see that the hate jar had a cloudy white color to it compared to the other jars. It also smelled musty when we smelled it. More condensation was also on the sides of the jar. Upon close examination, we also noticed that the lid had grown mold or mildew on the top.
Below, in order the control group jar lid, the love jar lid, and the hate jar lid.
Ok, so I know the experiment isn’t perfect because the lids aren’t all the same, but I couldn’t find another one of the metal lids at the time, so I used the purple plastic one.
What a fantastic and powerful way to teach kids about bullying and kindness. The power of the kids’ words is evident when they speak to the jars without you having to say much. I do suggest you ask questions when the jars are opened such as:
Why do you think this happened?
How is this like when we talk to people?
Do you think your words affect people the same way? Why?
What do you wonder now?
Did our words really change the water? Was it just some bacteria that floated in the air? Were the jars clean enough? Was there bacteria in the water? What could explain these differences? (I feel like I am a script writer for Ripley’s believe it or not.)
Now, this happened not once–but twice. First, with the rice experiment and now with water! Something is definitely going on here. You don’t believe me? I dare you to try it at home for 30 days.
What will we do next? Well, the kids in my class decided that they wanted to put three NEW jars in boxes in separate corners of the room to talk to each day–so that is what we will do!
Do This Experiment if Your Kids Are Name Calling {Giveaway}
So, I had this idea a couple of years ago. It started with the curiosity of the experiment Dr. Emoto had about water and snowflakes. In case you don’t know Dr. Emoto spoke different words to water and then froze it. After freezing the water, he saw the water form different structures and shapes. The kind words made beautiful snowflakes while the bad words made the water form in less desirable shapes. I showed this to my students first.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au4qx_l8KEU[/embedyt]
Then I saw where someone had recreated this experiment with rice and water. I decided to try this at home one summer where I could speak to the jars without interruption for 30 days. When I was at home, I chose 3 equal sized jars and put one cup of dry rice in each. Then I poured one cup of water on top of the rice in each of the three jars. On one jar I labeled LOVE, one I labeled HATE, and on the third jar I wrote nothing. Then I spoke to the jars for 30 days. I said, ” I love you” to the love jar and “I hate you” to the jar labeled hate. I did nothing to the jar labeled with nothing. After 30 days I opened the jars. I was in total suspense. When I opened the jars, they all stunk really badly, but they all had distinctly different smells. They all grew mold. Interestingly, the jar that was ignored grew more mold than the jar that was labeled hate.
Now fast forward to a couple of years later. I did this with my class starting on the first day of school. This time I did the experiment a little differently and I recommend doing the experiment this way with your class if you decide to do this. I boiled 3 cups of white rice and measured out one cup for each of three equal sized jars and sealed them. I, again, labeled the jars, love, hate, and then just a blank jar. Each time the students would leave for the day, they would say “I love you” to the love jar and “I hate you” to the hate jar. Now to the blank jar, they were supposed to do nothing and say nothing. Every now and then a child would pick up the blank jar. I had it marked on the calendar for the day we would open the jars. We just finished the experiment this past Friday. This was the 30th day of us talking to the jars, but not the 30th day of the jars sitting. On days we were not at school, the jars just sat. I was a little worried that this would have a negative effect on the experiment, but it did not. (below the lids are ajar because this is the day we opened them)
Before we did the experiment, I had the students predict what would happen to each jar. None of them predicted what actually happened. I was also surprised about what happened.The rice DID NOT mold. About mid way through the 30 days the rice started to liquefy and become just white slush. The granules of rice were no longer visible. The consistency was more like oatmeal. When we opened the jars, they all stunk but not as bad as when I did the experiment at home. The love jar smelled like fermented bread. The hate jar smelled like fermented cheese and had more of a sour smell. In my opinion, the blank jar smelled the worst and also smelled fermented.
To make sure everyone had a chance to smell the jars without having their peers adverse reactions affect their experience, I had each student go smell the jars individually with their back turned to the class. The jars were set up in the back of the room. The children were busy working on another activity while I let each child go one by one to the back for jar observations. I instructed them before hand to not make any reactions to the class so that everyone had a fair chance to form their own opinion. I had the students write down the results of what the jars smelled like after they smelled them on the same paper that they had made their predictions 30 days earlier. Then I let them talk at their table groups about what they noticed. Later I pulled all the students to the carpet to discuss what they noticed and their thoughts. Of course, they wanted to talk about how it smelled like “poop”, “farts”, and the like! 🙂 When we got past what the jars smelled like, I asked the kids why they thought I had them do this. Some kids recognized the fact that their words changed the rice, and were in amazement about how this had happened. (below the jars from the back–I know the jars look like different amounts, but I measured each one the same)
I must mention a HUGE teacher moment happened during this. One of those moments that makes your job worth while :). I had a child come up to me after we had talked about how words affect people when you say mean things to them just like our words affected the rice positively or negatively. He said, “You know, I’ve been saying mean things to a someone in my class, and he’s here in this room right now. I said, “Do you feel like you need to apologize?” He shook his head saying yes. I said, “Well, you are welcome to step outside with him and apologize.” And, so he did!
Who would’ve thought that talking to rice would change the heart of a child?
What Is It? {Giveaway Time}
So the story goes like this. I, of course, like most dutiful teachers went back to school before my contract began to get my classroom set up. I currently have a trailer classroom. We affectionately refer to all of us in trailers as the “trailer park”. Well the first time I went into my trailer and walked out I noticed a little friend waiting for me on the wood railing outside my door–pictured above.
What do you think it could be?
Suddenly I smiled and realized what this was. I hate to spoil the fun, but I’ll go ahead and tell you. Last school year towards the end you may remember I spent a lot of time doing electricity experiments with lemons, limes, potatoes, fruit, you name it. I had given some of the potatoes to a classroom teacher so that she could use them in her plant unit. She was allowing the students to sprout seeds. Well the last day of school, I had one little potato left that had sprouted a bit and I planned on taking it home to see what would happen. And, you guessed it! I forgot and left it on the railing outside my trailer. Little did I know two months later it would still be there untouched.
As if my whole house and yard haven’t become little science projects. Think with me. How would you turn this into a lesson? 🙂
Giveaway time!!!
Giveaway organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)
Can a Human Circuit Light an LED bulb?
This past year when we were building lemon batteries, students had many of their own investigative questions. For one, students wondered if lemon juice would light an LED bulb. As a result, we tested lemon juice, apple juice, salt water, and many other liquids. Acting on their own questions fueled even more curiosity.
One student wondered if we could build a human circuit. I didn’t think it would be possible to light an LED bulb with a human circuit. I researched it on Google before I tried this activity with the students, and I found NOTHING about being able to light an LED with a human circuit. I had the students predict whether they thought that we could accomplish the lighting of an LED. Only about three out of ten students thought we could light the bulb.
Here is what we did:
- I had each student get one alligator clip wire to connect a pre-1982 penny and a zinc nail. (Doing this will give you about two more wires than you need, but at least everyone is busy.)
- I had about 10 students stand in a circle.
- Then each student in the circle held one pre-1982 penny in one hand between two fingers and with the other hand held one zinc nail between two fingers.
- Between each of the sets of students in the circle, I had the students hold the wire of an LED bulb. One student held one wire (positive) coming out of the bulb while another student held the other wire (negative).
- I made sure everyone was making a complete circuit for the electricity to pass through.
Then I heard the unthinkable. “I saw it light up!” one child exclaimed.
Now, I thought the students just saw a reflection, and it really wasn’t lighting up. Speaking to myself here—“Oh, ye of little faith.” Children are so optimistic, and I was blatantly reminded of my pessimism at this moment.
I turned off the lights because I wanted to be sure they weren’t imagining this. Sure enough, the electrical current flowed through all of the kids to create a human battery and light up an LED!!!
Side note: In case you aren’t having success with your human circuit. Make sure each child is actually making connection with a penny and a nail. There must be a penny, nail pattern in the circle. Flip the LED bulb the opposite direction if it doesn’t work the first time since each of the wires/prongs coming out of the LED are either positive or negative.
This could be an amazing team building experience with your students at the beginning of the year!
Cheap Mystery Experiments with Solids {Giveaway}
Originally I had planned for students to do the mystery liquids and mystery solids lessons together, but once students were doing their experiments, I realized we needed another class period to do the solids. This allows time for at least 15 minutes of rich discussion at the end. During the discussion time students tell what they think each solid is by defending it with their experiment data. 
Now, for each group of four students I made cups like the ones you see pictured. I collected seven substances that were white and powdery. Numbered cups help children determine which substance they are using and also help if they use the numbered plates I mentioned in the previous post. The substances can come from your kitchen cabinet or bathroom. These are the seven I used.
- Table salt
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
- Borax
- Powdered sugar
- Granulated sugar
- White Flour
Before allowing them to experiment, I asked them to discuss some of the ways that we could test these substances to see what they were. They mentioned the senses. At this point I tell them that we will absolutely NOT be tasting them, even though it would work in some cases, I let them know that these are NOT all edible. Further, I demonstrate how to use your hand to fan the scent of an item to smell it. Before I mentioned this, some students had sucked some of the substance up their nose by accident, and I didn’t want to repeat this problem. 🙂 Other ways to test that were mentioned were pH indicators, comparisons to other substances, and chemical reactions. Students had gathered significant data about these substances with pH indicators and chemical reactions in previous lessons.
Concerning materials management, I will be honest. I wasn’t brave enough to allow free access to substances for them to freely gather to do chemical tests. I dispensed these as needed.
All in all, the kids enjoyed being scientists, mixing substances to see the reactions, and creating new substances. This lesson needs at least an hour and maybe longer for students who take longer. Some of my classes took more than one class period, but most students needed just one.
Further, chemical reaction experiments are great to do before summer break because students will be inspired to do something besides sit in front of a screen during the summer. They might turn into real chemical engineers one day just by exploring their kitchen cabinets. (I always remind them to ask parental permission before exploring substances at home.) Now for a giveaway!
Mystery Liquids
If you have already allowed children to experience chemical reactions, they will be sure to enjoy figuring out which liquids these are. Now this experiment would go nicely with a CSI unit, if you tell children that these substances were found at a crime scene. Then tell them that they have to figure out which substances were left at the crime scene.
Now, for the practical matters of this experiment. First, I gathered five clear containers for each group and picked five mostly clear liquids. You can use whichever liquids you would like, but I chose
*water
*vinegar,
*very watered down dish soap,
*Sprite, and
*rubbing alcohol.
I colored every substance with food coloring except for the Sprite to make everything more mysterious. Also, just an FYI: I watered down the dish soap to the point where bubbles were almost undetectable, so it would be harder to figure out. I gave students small plastic spoons like the taste test spoons at an ice cream store to dip out the liquids. I also gave them wax paper because the surface tension of the water on wax paper is so evident compared to other liquids. Further, if they have a sheet of wax paper as opposed to a plate they waste less. Just have paper towels readily available.
Before I let the students have the materials, I made them tell what they could do to each substance to test it before they received the liquids. These are some of the things they told me.
- We can smell them.
- We can look at them.
- We can touch them.
- We can taste them. (at which point, I say absolutely not :))
- We can look at our old notes and test them with pH strips to see if the results match.
- We can do chemical reaction experiments.
- We can compare them to the substances that are available ( I had some liquids available).
During experimentation, I had several things available in extra supply for experimentation:
- extra solids available in small cups
- extra liquids available in small cups
- pH strips (I dispensed as needed)
- cabbage juice (I dispensed as needed)
(these were set up similar to the chemical reactions lesson I already shared)
I left time at the end of our class for the students to discuss which liquids they were and to support their conclusions. Most students were able to figure out all of the liquids except the water. Some students asked me if I had duplicated any of the liquids, and I did not. However, mwah ha ha, mwah ha ha (evil laughter), I did think about having two jars filled with water of different colors and having them figure this out.
What You Haven’t Read about Lemon Batteries
Are you building a lemon battery? Here is how you build the battery, but I am going to tell you a few tips I learned through the process that I didn’t easily find on the internet.
(I apologize for not having pristine step by step photos of this process, but I am thinking about teaching when I’m taking these photos, so they don’t usually look perfect and bloggish. The potatoes are above also since we did potato batteries as well.)
1. Get about 3-4 lemons.
2. Roll the lemons on the table pressing a bit with the palm of your hand to get the lemon juicy.
3. Insert one copper penny into each lemon. The penny acts as the positive terminal. Push the pennies about halfway in.
*The penny should be made before 1982 (these were made with almost entirely copper). If they were made in 1982 or after they are only coated with copper. You may have to borrow a child’s piggy bank. I offered to pay my neighbor 5 cents for every penny she could find made before 1982. I decided to do this because when I got rolls of pennies from the bank, there were only about 2 or 3 made before 1982 in the whole roll. I was quite disappointed. I say don’t waste your time, and find someone with a piggy bank.
4. Insert one zinc nail (or screw) into each lemon. The nail acts as the negative terminal. Push it in with about 2 cm left outside of the lemon. Make sure the nail doesn’t touch the penny inside the lemon.
*The more contact the nail has with the lemon juice the better your lemon will work.
5. Buy some alligator clips to connect the penny in each lemon to the nail in the next lemon. You will need at least 5 wires for each set of four lemons you attach. Attach the wire on one penny and the the other end of wire on one nail successively. The wires on the lemons on the end need to be left unattached. These ends will attach to the lightbulb. This is my favorite go to image of the lemon battery. I leave this on the SMART board for the kids to see while putting together their batteries.
*You can order alligator clips from here and many other places. If you are in a pinch, you can go to Wal-mart’s automotive section and find red and black alligator clip wires there. (Lowes and Home Depot didn’t have the whole wire and clip put together).
6. Attach each end of the LED bulb to the lose alligator clips. Reference image link above in step 5. One end of an LED is positive and one end is negative, so students will have to switch sides of the bulb if their circuit isn’t working.
*To get LED bulbs cheaply, you can buy a $1 flashlight at War-Mart etc. and beat it with a hammer until you can break the bulbs out. This is a bit frustrating and took me about 30 minutes. You may also see if anyone you know including parents of your students have old LED Christmas lights they want to get rid of. When I put out a request for Christmas light strands, I got about 5-6 strands!!! Score!
*This is a great video if you are wanting students to understand how the electrons flow to make electricity work in batteries. If you are just wanting students to see the part about the battery, watch 1:34-3:55. If you want them to see how the lemon battery is built, you can continue watching until the end of the video.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzSnz6ZDkFE[/embedyt]
What I definitely learned from experience:
*Yes, you can use the lemons for multiple classes. They will still work. I used the same lemons 3 back to back classes one day and four back to back classes the next. After a few days (I can’t remember exactly how many) the lemons will mold, and you won’t want to use them anyway.
*The nails will no longer work when they turn too black after a couple of classes. This is most often the reason the lemon battery doesn’t work for students who have all the wiring, pennies, and nails connected the right way. You will have to use new nails. They are relatively cheap, so no problem.
*The LED can burn out if you leave it connected too long. I tell the students to count to 20 seconds after they see it light up and then disconnect it. It will last longer than 20 seconds, but this is just what I tell them.
*You can use a 9-volt battery as a light bulb tester if you want to see if the LED works in case the kids insist that the light bulb is the problem. Touch each wire end of the LED lightbulb to the positive and negative terminals of the 9-volt battery. This will FOR SURE blow out the LED bulb if left for too long so just touch it barely to the 9-volt for half a second to see if it lights up. See here.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PALTebhcwA[/embedyt]
- Most often when the students’ lemon battery doesn’t work it is because:
- they have an alligator clip connected to two pennies or two nails. It is important that there is a penny, nail, penny, nail, penny, nail, penny, nail connection, or the electrons won’t flow from the negative to the positive.
- they have the LED light bulb turned the wrong way
- the zinc on their nails has corroded and the nails need to be replaced. This doesn’t happen with the pennies because lemon juice actually cleans pennies.
A great question to pose after this is, do you think you could light up an LED with fewer lemons?
The answer…Yes, you can sometimes light up the bulb with 3 lemons, but it will be dimmer. It is also possible to light it up with only one lemon if you can put enough pennies and nails into a single lemon. Now, I was never successful at this but, there are You Tube videos in which this has been explained.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhbuhT1GDpI[/embedyt]
5 Things to Know if Teaching Wiring with Electricity
While wading through teaching electricity, I learned a few hints that I wish I had known before setting out on this venture.
The following applies if you are teaching children to wire bulbs from Christmas light strands.
1. If you strip wire, strip it a little at a time (about 2-3 cm). This will prevent the small strands of copper from falling out from the friction.
2. After you strip the wire, twist the exposed copper ends a little at a time to prevent the small strands of copper wire from falling out. Then the copper wire will be stronger and easier to use.
3. If you allow students to use Christmas lights from the strand, it works best to just pull the bulb out completely and connect each end of the bulb wire (see small arrows above) to a Christmas light. At times, you can cut the wire with the bulbs still in the wire and they worked, but more often than not, it didn’t work to cut the wire with the bulbs still in them.
4. If you cut Christmas light wire to do wiring with Christmas lights, the thin wire will only carry about 12 volts before it overheats. I learned this from an electrician.
5. If you use LED bulbs, be aware that one end of the LED bulb will be a positive end and one end will be negative. This makes it more difficult to wire these type of bulbs. This is because you don’t know if the circuit has a bad connection or if the bulb is turned around the wrong way.
Here is one of the best classroom models the kids made below. They did one of the best wiring jobs!
