Investigation-style plan for science in 7th grade

[lewelma]

This is an x-post from this thread.  I thought it might help someone else and was pretty buried in that thread.  The thread also contains all the questions I asked about the situation and the answers Aimee gave me which I used to create the plan.

 

Ruth in NZ

 

X-post

 

Well, here is my thoughts on a plan.  Obviously, you need to adapt it to work for your very lovely dd.  If you have any questions, please ask!
 
 
Goals
To rekindle the love of science. And that is it!
 
Plan:
 
Topics (each 1-2 months)
Biochemistry and Neurobiology
Microbiology
Astronomy
Anatomy
Chemistry
Electronics
 
Let her pick the order she wants to do them in, but I would suggest that she completes one unit before moving onto the next (exception is biochem/neurobio which can be split in 2).
 
Output
1) Awesome lab notebook separated into units. She would include her lovely drawings for the dissections and microscopic organisms, her diagrams and cartoons for biochem/neurobiology, her charts of the moon and sun for astronomy, and her documentation and graphing for the silly putty investigation.
 
2) Presentation: at the end of each unit she would spend the last week (or 2) bringing it all together. Making a poster showing off her work and preparing a presentation to give to mom and dad. This is a time for celebration rather than critique and evaluation.
 
Evaluation
None. However, you would have the notebook, posters, and recorded presentations for your records.
 
Schedule (I'm not super clear on this, so please adjust as needed)
 
Monday and Wednesday – reading textbooks, watching short internet clips when desired, doing diagrams from texts
 
Tuesday and Thursday – Activity days. Working through the models, investigations, drawings, microscope work that I list below. These are the days where she is likely to need about 20-30 minutes of your help to make sure things are going smoothly.
 
Friday - You said that you have more time on fridays to help. So I would schedule an hour to initiate her lab work, which I think will be the hardest part given that she is not just following directions. Then every Friday make sure to work with her to evaluate where she is at and what her goals are for the hands-on work for the following week. You can even write down the goals. This will be a very important time for both of you to make sure that she can mostly independently implement the activities during the week.
 
Weekends- for electronics with dad!
 
Last week (or two) of each unit - she works M-F on her poster and presentation. Your role here is to offer guidance as to what to focus on and how to present it.
 
Your role: facilitator. You need to:
 
1) buy what is required
 
2) make reading goals for each week (or day). Just take each book and break it up into the number of weeks she will work on things. You need to do this ahead of time. Don't get too stressed over finishing a book. So perhaps schedule only half of each book, and then put in some 'extra optional readings' for if she is motivated and has time. That way she has success by meeting reasonable deadlines, but has the option of a laid out plan if she has extra time and motivation.
 
3) Lab oversight. I think that she would need at least two 20-30-minute of oversight each week and 1 hour on fridays for lab work. She will definitely need  oversight to make sure that she knows how to do the activities I have laid out. I have not given extensive directions, so she will need some from you or she will just stumble in the dark.
 
4) Help with finding any internet resources needed to complete the activities
 
5)General encouragement and positive can-do attitude. These things are contagious
 
Units and Resources
 
(I found most of these books in my library, but they seem to be pretty cheap second hand on Amazon. I'm obviously not clear on her reading level, but I did the best I could to think up complex books written at a 6^th grade level which is a pretty tough ask)
 
Biochemistry and Neurobiology (3 months, could be split into 2 months for The Brain and 1 month for biochemistry, putting a different unit in between.  This unit is definitely the hardest in terms of the resources I could find and the actual material to study, so it might be better not to start with it. Don't want to turn her off right at the beginning.)
 
Text: The Way Life Works (easier than Exploring the Way Life Works, but still might be too hard. You may need to team read, not sure)
 
Curriculum: Ellen McHenry's Brain
 
Video: Coursera's Understanding the Brain. If nothing else, download the dissection videos for each week, they are with a human brain. This course will close, so make sure to download ASAP what she might like to view
 
Activities: included in The Brain curriculum: anatomy drawings, surveys, youtube clips. My son also drew cartoons of the processes he learned about in The Way Things Work (which is cartoon based)
 
Microbiology (2 months)
 
Text: The World of the Microscope

Internet resources: scale of a cell
Microworld has classification info
How to measure with a microscope

Activities:
Biology Corner – lots of labs

1) Go into a field where there is a ditch that typically has standing water in it, sample some from the bottom, come home and see what you can find. Draw, measure, and identify the litter critters. Get water from other sources and compare what you find between different bodies of water and different locations within the same water. Document your findings
 
2) Make slides of anything you want: hair, fiber from clothing, skin cell, plant cell, paper, food, etc. Have fun!
 
Astronomy (1 month, but certain the sun activities will continue for 6 months)
 
Text: Exploring the Night Sky Haven't used it, but heard good things.
The Way the Universe Works This is what we used. It is the best I have found at the reading level I think you are talking about
 
Activities:
1) Track the vertical movement of the sun in the sky with a shadow length at the same time each day. Record every 2 weeks
2) Track the setting location of the sun with a mark on your wall or something for 6 months (or even a year)
3) Make a scale model of the solar system using a old-fashioned adding-machine tape (so 6+ meters long) and a dot for the size of the planets
4) Document the location of the moon and the phase for a month
5) Identify constellations. Watch how they move throughout the night, and over the year
6) Track the movement of the planets with respect to the constellations
 
Anatomy (1- 2 months depending on how excited she gets about dissections
 
text: The Way We Work A basic (but fat) human anatomy book. I can't remember the exact reading level of this one so you should preview it.
internet resources Biology corner again with info on how to dissect a heart You can just google any dissections and get directions or a youtube video walking you through it
 
Activities: dissect a fish, a muscle or oyster; a liver, eye, heart, brain (from cow, pig, or sheep) See what else your butcher has. If it is food grade, then there are no disposal issues, just dump it in your garbage.

Chemistry (1-2 months)
 
I'm not clear on what she knows and doesn't know, so can't really recommend a text or curriculum
book: history of the periodic table
internet resources: Periodic Table of Videos
 
Activity: The best open ended activity I have ever found for chemistry is making silly putty (like I mentioned above). Just google a basic recipe, and get 2 types of glue (blue and elmers white), borax, and corn starch. Start with the basic recipe, make up the putty, put a touch of food dye in it to differentiate each batch, and wrap in plastic. Then change one ingredient at a time while keeping everything else constant. Help her set up a bounce height test and a stretch test, and a table to record her data, and start measuring which one is better at what. It can get as complicated as she wants as she can vary 3 different variables, so the graphing can be quite complex. Real science this one, and real chemistry. Change the inputs and get a different product. But make sure she knows that borax is a poison, so should be handled with care and she needs to wash her hands after she uses it. It is standard practice in chemistry lab not to touch your face during a lab either, so remind her of that also. This investigation took my son a full month of mucking around resulting in lots of pretty colored putties!
 
Electronics (during weekends with dad)
 
Well that is it!  I hope it works with some tweaking.  :001_smile: