NOVEMBER 1, 2024 • ROSH CHODESH CHESHVAN
Station #1 - Glowsticks
This activity incorporates several science concepts related to electricity, circuits, and basic engineering principles:
1. Electric Circuits: By connecting the LED to the battery, participants are creating a simple electric circuit. This introduces the concept of a closed circuit, where electricity flows from the battery through the LED and back, allowing the LED to light up.
2. Polarity and Connections: Understanding the difference between the long leg (+, anode) and short leg (-, cathode) of the LED highlights the importance of polarity in electrical components. This concept is crucial for ensuring proper connections in electronic circuits.
3. Energy Conversion: The LED lighting up demonstrates the conversion of electrical energy from the battery into light energy, illustrating how electrical devices work by transforming energy from one form to another.
4. Material Properties: Using electric tape emphasizes the properties of adhesives and their applications in securing electrical components, showcasing how different materials can serve specific functions in circuit assembly.
5. Basic Engineering and Design: The process of assembling the LED and battery into a straw promotes engineering skills, including design thinking and problem-solving. Participants must think critically about how to arrange the components for functionality.
6. Light Emission: Observing the LED light up provides a practical example of how light-emitting diodes function, allowing participants to explore concepts of light emission and the behavior of LEDs compared to traditional bulbs.
7. Safety and Conductivity: This activity can also introduce discussions about electrical safety and the importance of using proper materials to avoid short circuits or other hazards.
Overall, this hands-on project effectively combines principles of electricity, engineering, and creativity, making abstract scientific concepts accessible and engaging through a practical application.
Station #2 - Toothbrush Bots
This activity incorporates several science concepts related to engineering, motion, and basic circuitry:
1. Simple Machines: Attaching the motor to the toothbrush head allows participants to explore the concept of simple machines and how they can create movement. The spinning motion illustrates rotational dynamics and mechanical energy.
2. Electricity and Circuits: Connecting the battery to the motor introduces basic principles of electricity, including how a circuit works. Participants learn about electrical components and the flow of current, understanding how batteries provide power to devices.
3. Balance and Stability: Adding legs with pipe cleaners emphasizes concepts of balance and stability in engineering. Participants can observe how the distribution of weight affects the movement and stability of their creation.
4. Material Properties: Using different materials (like tape, motor, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes) allows for exploration of their physical properties, such as flexibility, adhesion, and weight. This encourages critical thinking about material choices in design.
5. Creative Design and Engineering: The process of constructing a moving object fosters engineering skills, including design thinking and problem-solving. Participants learn to iterate and modify their designs based on how well the creation functions.
6. Kinetic Energy: The spinning motion generated by the motor demonstrates kinetic energy in action, illustrating how energy can be converted from electrical to mechanical forms.
Overall, this hands-on activity combines principles of engineering, physics, and creativity, providing an engaging way for participants to understand fundamental scientific concepts through playful exploration.
Station #3 - Popsicle Catapults
This activity demonstrates several fundamental science concepts related to physics and engineering, particularly in the context of simple machines and energy transfer:
1. Leverage and Torque: The construction functions as a simple catapult, illustrating the principles of leverage. The single popsicle stick acts as a lever, and the spoon is the lever arm. The rubber bands provide tension, allowing participants to understand how force is applied to create movement.
2. Potential and Kinetic Energy: When the spoon is pulled down, potential energy is stored in the rubber bands and the bent lever. Once released, this potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, propelling the projectile into the air. This transformation highlights the conservation of energy.
3. Elastic Energy: The rubber bands demonstrate elastic potential energy. As they are stretched, they store energy that is released when the bands return to their original shape, launching the projectile. This showcases how elastic materials behave under tension.
4. Forces and Motion: Participants can observe the effects of forces in action—specifically, how pulling the spoon down applies a force to the projectile, causing it to move. This introduces concepts of Newton’s laws of motion, particularly the action-reaction principle.
5. Trajectory and Angle of Launch: The height and distance the projectile travels can be influenced by the angle at which it is launched. This experiment allows for exploration of projectile motion, including factors like angle, speed, and distance.
6. Engineering Design and Problem Solving: Building the catapult requires planning, testing, and refining designs. Participants engage in the engineering design process, learning how to modify their constructions to improve performance and efficiency.
7. Collaboration and Experimentation: If done in groups, this activity encourages teamwork and collaborative problem-solving, as participants can share ideas, test different designs, and learn from each other’s successes and failures.
Overall, this hands-on project combines fun with educational insights into basic physics principles, encouraging creativity, experimentation, and critical thinking.
Station #4 - Marshmallow Towers
This activity demonstrates several important scientific concepts related to engineering, physics, and teamwork:
1. Engineering Design Process: Participants engage in the engineering design process by brainstorming, planning, building, testing, and iterating their tower designs. This hands-on approach emphasizes problem-solving and critical thinking.
2. Structural Engineering: The challenge of building a tall tower introduces basic principles of structural engineering, including concepts of stability, balance, and load distribution. Participants must consider how to create a structure that can support its own weight and resist collapsing.
3. Material Properties: Different materials (spaghetti and marshmallows) have unique physical properties. Spaghetti is rigid but brittle, while marshmallows are soft and malleable. Understanding how these materials behave under stress helps participants make informed design choices.
4. Forces and Gravity: As participants build their towers, they must consider the effects of gravity on their structures. Understanding how gravitational force affects stability and height is crucial in engineering design.
5. Geometry and Spatial Reasoning: Designing a tower involves geometric concepts, such as shapes, angles, and height. Participants need to think spatially about how to arrange their materials to achieve maximum height and stability.
6. Collaboration and Teamwork: This activity often requires group collaboration, allowing participants to practice communication, teamwork, and negotiation skills as they work together to achieve a common goal.
7. Trial and Error: Participants will likely go through multiple iterations of their designs, learning through trial and error. This concept is central to scientific experimentation and engineering, highlighting the importance of resilience and adaptability.
Overall, this engaging challenge encourages exploration of fundamental engineering principles, promotes creativity, and fosters collaboration, making it a valuable learning experience.
Station #5 - Ice Cream in a Bag
This activity demonstrates several key scientific concepts, particularly in chemistry and thermodynamics:
1. Phase Change and Freezing Point Depression: By adding salt to the ice in the larger Ziplock bag, participants lower the freezing point of the ice, which allows the mixture in the smaller bag to freeze more effectively. This concept illustrates how solutes like salt can alter the properties of solvents (in this case, ice).
2. Thermal Energy Transfer: The process involves the transfer of heat energy from the half-and-half mixture to the ice. As the ice absorbs heat, it melts, and in turn, the temperature of the cream mixture drops, leading to its eventual freezing. This demonstrates the principle of energy conservation and how thermal energy moves from warmer to cooler areas.
3. Chemical Solutions: The activity introduces concepts of solubility and the formation of solutions, as the sugar dissolves in the half-and-half and the vanilla extract mixes with it. This helps illustrate how different substances can interact to create a homogeneous mixture.
4. Kinetic Energy and Motion: Shaking the bags promotes the mixing of the ingredients and aids in the freezing process. The motion generates kinetic energy, which helps distribute the cold temperature throughout the mixture more evenly.
5. Emulsification: The mixture of half-and-half, sugar, and vanilla demonstrates emulsification, where fats in the cream combine with liquids to create a smooth texture. This process is important in food science and helps create the creamy consistency of the ice cream.
6. Scientific Method and Experimentation: This hands-on activity encourages observation, hypothesis testing, and analysis of results, making it a practical example of the scientific method in action. Participants can discuss variables such as the amount of salt, ice, or shaking time and how these affect the final product.
Overall, this simple yet effective experiment serves as a fun way to explore foundational principles in chemistry and physics while engaging participants in a delicious outcome!
Station #6 - Stargazing
This activity incorporates several scientific concepts related to astronomy, light, and optics:
1. Constellations and Astronomy: By selecting and cutting out a constellation, participants learn about star patterns and their historical significance in navigation, culture, and mythology. This fosters an understanding of how ancient civilizations interpreted the night sky.
2. Light and Shadow: Covering the ends of the cardboard tube with aluminum foil introduces the concept of light barriers. The light source (flashlight) and its interaction with the holes in the foil illustrate how light travels in straight lines and how shadows are formed.
3. Optics and Projection: Poking holes in the foil to create the constellation pattern demonstrates the principle of light projection. When light passes through the holes, it creates an image on a surface, teaching participants about the behavior of light and the concept of inverse images.
4. Measurement and Precision: The instruction to make a hole of a specific diameter (½ inch) emphasizes precision in measurement and its importance in scientific experiments.
5. Inversion and Reflection: Creating an inverse constellation pattern highlights the concept of reflection and inversion, reinforcing understanding of how images can change based on perspective and orientation.
6. Hands-On Experimentation: The entire process encourages scientific inquiry and experimentation, allowing participants to observe and understand the principles of light and shadow through a practical application.
Overall, this project effectively combines art and science, making abstract concepts in astronomy and optics tangible and engaging through hands-on learning.
Station #7 - Find Your Blind Spot
This activity demonstrates several important science concepts related to vision, perception, and the physiology of the human eye:
1. Binocular Vision and Depth Perception: By using both eyes to focus on different shapes, participants experience how binocular vision helps in perceiving depth and distance. This experiment highlights how each eye contributes to our overall perception, allowing us to understand spatial relationships.
2. Focus and Accommodative Response: As participants move the paper closer while keeping their focus on one shape, they observe the eye’s ability to adjust focus. This process, known as accommodation, involves the lens changing shape to focus on objects at varying distances.
3. Visual Attention: The exercise emphasizes how our visual system prioritizes focus. When focusing on one shape, the other becomes less clear, demonstrating selective attention. This illustrates the brain’s ability to filter information based on what is deemed most important at the moment.
4. Monocular vs. Binocular Viewing: By alternating between covering each eye, participants experience the differences between monocular (one eye) and binocular (both eyes) viewing. This shows how depth perception and clarity can change based on which eye is being used, as well as how each eye perceives the visual field differently.
5. Perceptual Constancy: As the paper moves closer, participants might notice that the shapes may appear to change or become distorted, illustrating how our perception can be influenced by proximity and the angle of view.
6. Neuroscience of Vision: The experiment highlights how the brain processes visual information from each eye and integrates it into a coherent image. This integration is crucial for understanding how we perceive the world around us.
Overall, this activity serves as a hands-on demonstration of fundamental principles in optics, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology, making it a valuable learning tool in understanding human vision.
Station #8 - Lemon Volcanoes
This activity demonstrates several intriguing scientific concepts, primarily in chemistry and biology:
1. Acid-Base Reaction: The lemon’s juice contains citric acid, and when baking soda (a base) is added, an acid-base reaction occurs. This reaction produces carbon dioxide gas, which creates fizzing and bubbling. This illustrates the concept of neutralization, where an acid reacts with a base to form water and a salt, along with the release of gas.
2. pH and Indicators: The use of food coloring can help visualize the reaction and the changes in pH. The color change (if applicable) can indicate the shift in acidity when baking soda is added. This introduces the concept of pH indicators and how certain substances can change color in different pH environments.
3. Gas Production and Chemical Change: The fizzing reaction showcases how gases are produced during chemical reactions. Participants can observe the formation of bubbles as carbon dioxide is released, which is a key concept in understanding chemical reactions and gas laws.
4. Diffusion and Mixing: Mixing the baking soda with the lemon juice demonstrates the concept of diffusion, where the baking soda spreads throughout the lemon juice. This highlights how substances interact at the molecular level to create a homogeneous mixture.
5. Scientific Inquiry and Observation: This experiment encourages scientific inquiry by prompting participants to make observations about the changes occurring throughout the process. It illustrates the importance of hypothesis formulation, experimentation, and drawing conclusions based on observed results.
6. Properties of Substances: The distinct characteristics of the lemon juice (sour, acidic) compared to baking soda (alkaline) provide a practical example of how different substances can exhibit unique properties that lead to observable chemical changes.
Overall, this engaging activity combines fun with educational insights into chemical reactions, properties of substances, and the basics of scientific experimentation.
Station #9 - Solar System Popsicle Sticks
This activity engages several science concepts related to astronomy and Earth science:
1. Solar System Structure: By cutting out each planet, participants learn about the structure of our solar system, including the eight planets and their relative sizes and characteristics.
2. Scale and Size: The act of creating physical representations of the planets can lead to discussions about their sizes, distances from the Sun, and how they compare to one another, fostering an understanding of scale in the solar system.
3. Planetary Characteristics: As participants label each planet, they can explore and discuss specific characteristics of each one, such as composition (terrestrial vs. gas giants), atmosphere, and any unique features (like rings or moons).
4. Art and Science Integration: The crafting aspect of gluing and labeling incorporates artistic skills, demonstrating how creativity can enhance scientific learning and representation.
5. Identification and Classification: Labeling the planets encourages identification and classification skills, helping participants understand how scientists categorize celestial bodies based on shared traits.
Overall, this hands-on activity promotes engagement with fundamental concepts of astronomy while fostering creativity and critical thinking.
Station #10 - Rain Cloud in a Jar
This activity involves several interesting science concepts, primarily from the fields of chemistry and physics:
1. Solutions and Mixtures: When you mix food coloring with water, you’re creating a solution. The food coloring disperses evenly in the water, demonstrating how solutes dissolve in solvents.
2. Density: Filling the large jar with water and then adding shaving cream introduces concepts of density and buoyancy. The shaving cream floats on top of the water because it is less dense than the liquid beneath it.
3. Liquid Properties: Using a pipette to transfer colored water showcases the properties of liquids, including surface tension and viscosity. It also illustrates how different liquids can interact.
4. Diffusion: When you drop colored water onto the shaving cream, the food coloring begins to spread, demonstrating diffusion. The colored water moves from an area of high concentration to lower concentration, showing how molecules move in liquids.
5. Hydrophobic vs. Hydrophilic Interactions: The shaving cream acts as a barrier that resists the penetration of water, highlighting the differences between hydrophobic (water-repelling) and hydrophilic (water-attracting) substances.
6. Color Mixing: As the colored water seeps through the shaving cream, it mixes and creates new colors, illustrating the concept of color mixing in the context of light and pigments.
Overall, this simple experiment effectively combines visual appeal with fundamental scientific principles, making it a great educational tool for exploring the properties of matter.
ADMISSIONS bethtfiloh.com/admissions
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Rabbi Dr. Yehuda Oratz, MS Principal yoratz@btfiloh.org
Mrs. Beth Goldstein, MS Assistant Principal bgoldstein@btfiloh.org
Special thanks to MS science teacher Mrs. Jen Moxley for all her hard work in making this program possible.