Color Changing Milk
This lesson was aimed to teach the students from Michael Brite’s sixth grade class about hydrophobic and hydrophilic molecules, or polar and nonpolar molecules, their properties, and how fats and proteins react to changes in the milk solution. Two bowls were filled up with milk, one with non-fat milk and one with whole milk. One droplet of different colored food dye was then added to the bowls of milk. Once the soapy q-tip is added to the bowl, the students observed what happened to the food dye- a colorful explosion as non-polar fat creates an “explosion” as it is carried away by the polar water. The higher the fat content in the milk, the bigger the “explosion”.
Entomology
Students from Michael Brite’s class learned about insect phylogeny(kingdom, order, species), insect characteristics, and the insect life cycle. Mealworm observation and scientific investigation allowed the students to more thoroughly explore the life of a mealworm. Lastly, the students partook in two activities- they designed and created their own insect based on the insect characteristics they observed during the lesson, and the students played Insect Bingo.
Density
One topic of the lessons taught to the students in Mr. Brite’s class was density- more importantly the different densities in household liquids and the result of dropping objects into the varying dense liquids. Six liquids total were used, including honey, corn syrup, rubbing alcohol, water, dish soap, and olive oil. All of these liquids were poured into a container one by one and the liquids layered one on top of the other showing their different densities. After this first portion of the experiment, different objects were dropped into the container of liquids, such as beads, dice, and ping pong balls. Each object stopped in a different layer of liquid.
The Economy For Beginners
Mr. Brite’s class learned about the economy, how it works, and more specifically what inflation is and how it comes to be. To learn about inflation, the students were given currency to represent the American dollar, $1 was their yearly income, and “pizzas” were auctioned off to the highest bidder(students were allowed to pool their money and split the pizza). Since not everyone got pizza, the yearly wage increased to $5 and auctioned off two more pizzas. This was repeated until the yearly income reached $500 and the same output remained, not everyone got a piece of “pizza” but the price merely inflated.