For a few years now, the Hubs writing team has used the informal tagline – “We can make your job easier” – when presenting at conferences or engaging in professional development. Making things easy was one of my goals when developing lower primary resources on observing water.
The junior school day is dominated by literacy and numeracy. Fitting in other curriculum areas can be a challenge, and offering good quality science programmes can be even more challenging. Finding meaningful and appropriate topics, the necessary resources and equipment and upskilling one’s knowledge can take a good deal of time. Angela's aim in writing these junior water resources is to provide an interesting topic with lots of hands-on activities that are educationally engaging and use common items from the classroom or kitchen.
The science behind observing water
Our collection of resources on Observing water explores Material World concepts and uses observation as the basis for learning about properties and changes of matter1 and the structure of matter. In their simplest terms, the big science ideas are:
- the characteristics of solids, liquids and gases2
- matter is made up of small particles
- matter can change states
- changes of state involve the addition or removal of (heat3) energy.
Observation and the nature of science
In addition, observing water has aspects of the nature of science4 woven throughout the activities. Students are encouraged to use observation as they investigate water and ice, bubbles and some of water’s quirky properties such as it's 'skin'. The activities encourage students to explore familiar substances and communicate their findings in age-appropriate ways.
Making science fun for students and teachers alike
Help with activities
Angela’s cat conducts his own experiment with surface tension while she develops the activity Observing water’s thin ‘skin’.
The hands-on activities use an inquiry approach to explore states of matter5 and some of the properties of water. They are simple yet engaging, and combine the aspects of play, exploration and working as scientists to observe and interpret their world. The videos and interactive are designed for a young audience – using imagery and language appropriate for their interest and developmental levels.
These resources are intended to be enjoyable for teachers, too. The science articles provide clear explanations on the basics of matter, energy and changes of state. A lesson plan provides ideas on how to use the resources. The lesson planner and all of the downloadable worksheets are in Word, making it easy for you to modify them to suit your needs.
Extension and enrichment opportunities
The observing water resources were kept simple to appeal to NZC level 1 and 2 audiences. There is plenty of opportunity for extension6, though. See our resources on viscosity and how liquids flow, including that most unusual of liquids – cornflour and water oobleck. The collection of resources on gases and plasmas explores the fourth state of matter7 – plasma8 – and explains how we see plasma in our everyday lives: lightning9, televisions and fluorescent lights.
- matter: The basic structural component of all things that have mass and volume.
- gases: The state of matter distinguished from the solid and liquid states. Gases have the ability to diffuse readily and to become distributed uniformly throughout any container.
- heat energy (heat): Heat energy: the transfer of energy in materials from the random movement of the particles in that material. The greater the random movement of particles the more heat energy the material has. Temperature is a measure of the heat energy of a material.
Heat: the flow of energy from a warm object to a cooler object. - nature of science: The Nature of Science (NoS), is an overarching and unifying strand of the New Zealand science curriculum. Through it, students develop the skills, attitudes and values to build a foundation for understanding the world around them – understanding how science works in order to make links between scientific knowledge and everyday decisions and actions.
- states of matter: The classical states of matter are solid, liquid and gas. Several other states, such as plasma, do exist. Plasma is the most common form of matter in the universe.
- extension: When a part of the body – muscle and joint – is in a non-flexed position.
- states of matter: The classical states of matter are solid, liquid and gas. Several other states, such as plasma, do exist. Plasma is the most common form of matter in the universe.
- plasma: 1. The fourth state of matter – a gas that is ionised and consists of positive and negative ions (or particles), with no overall charge. It is affected by magnetic fields and has high electrical conductivity. 2. The colourless or pale yellow liquid in blood and lymph.
- lightning: A large-scale natural spark discharge, visible as a flash of blue-white light, that occurs within the atmosphere or between the atmosphere and the Earth’s surface. The lightning channel consists of extremely high-temperature plasma.
