Does Mystery Science have a written component?

[EKT]

I just signed up for a free membership at Mystery Science and I was able to watch a sample video, but I have to wait a few days until I can actually get into the content myself. From the looks of it, students watch the video, discuss, and do the experiment, but it does not appear that there is any sort of written lab report (or any written component). Is this accurate, or did I miss something? Thanks!

 

 

[silver]

I have not seen much of a written component to any of the mysteries we've done. I, personally, don't think it would be appropriate, either. For one, Mystery Science is mostly meant for elementary students, and I don't think they should necessarily be writing lab reports. For another, many of the activities don't even pretend to be experiments. If it's not a proper experiment, why write a lab report? There have been a few that could count as experiments, and those do have sheets to collect data. But it wasn't a formal experiment with a hypothesis written down and a lab write up at the end.

[EKT]

I have not seen much of a written component to any of the mysteries we've done. I, personally, don't think it would be appropriate, either. For one, Mystery Science is mostly meant for elementary students, and I don't think they should necessarily be writing lab reports. For another, many of the activities don't even pretend to be experiments. If it's not a proper experiment, why write a lab report? There have been a few that could count as experiments, and those do have sheets to collect data. But it wasn't a formal experiment with a hypothesis written down and a lab write up at the end.

 

Thank you for the info; this is good! I feel like we're going to have so much writing across the curriculum that I didn't necessarily want there to be even more writing in science. So...it looks like Mystery Science is more about activities rather than formal experiments, which I think might work for us. Thanks!

[HomeAgain]

There are worksheets/lab sheets for each mystery we've done.  They are very simple - I think the K-2 ones we did were mostly circling words/objects with an optional tracing part.  They did have a little more writing as we went up in grades.

[shawthorne44]

I used this for a K-2 co-op class.  For example, on the grass head one there was a worksheet where the kid draws what they think the grass head will end up looking like, and then another box for what they actually end up looking like.  The writing seems to be mostly producing some classroom documentation that science was actually done and a place to put a checkmark or a grade, then an important part of the lab.   

[Insertcreativenamehere]

There are worksheets, but they are oriented more to a classroom. We simply discuss the content and usually forego the worksheets. 

[Mrs Twain]

My daughter is in 4th grade, and she does the worksheets each week.  They are short answer questions mostly.

 

I also have my daughter do a journal each week.  I printed out journal paper with the blank top half and the lined bottom half of the page.  After each lesson, she writes about what scientific principles she learned, and then she draws a picture to illustrate it.  That is a great way to solidify the science concepts and a way to document what we have done in science.  It is a lovely keepsake, too.  

[Pegs]

We do the end of lesson assessments, which are usually about four questions long. Of the assessments I've seen, I think they're pretty decent questions for prompting problem solving and scientific thinking, not just to check memorisation of content.

 

DS answers orally in full sentences, and I write his answer down on a separate piece of paper for him to copy onto the worksheet. Sometimes if his answers are too long to reasonably expect him to copy, I scribe for him and we just pick one sentence for copywork later.

 

(We have a bit of a handwriting lag going on, but we're building writing skills as best we can anyhow. :) )

[michaeljenn]

I used this for a K-2 co-op class.  For example, on the grass head one there was a worksheet where the kid draws what they think the grass head will end up looking like, and then another box for what they actually end up looking like.  The writing seems to be mostly producing some classroom documentation that science was actually done and a place to put a checkmark or a grade, then an important part of the lab.   

 

 

Curious how you did this in your co-op.  Did they watch the videos together or?  We enjoy Mystery Science and I never thought about creating a co-op class for it.  Can you give me a sample of what a co-op class looks like?

[shawthorne44]

Curious how you did this in your co-op.  Did they watch the videos together or?  We enjoy Mystery Science and I never thought about creating a co-op class for it.  Can you give me a sample of what a co-op class looks like?

 

We watched the videos together and the kids answered the questions like they would in a classroom, even raising their hands.   Then we did the experiment.   I found it pretty impossible to figure out how much of the class each would take.   I think that is my issue because I have it in every class.   So, I always checked out related library books aimed at the elementary level.  Then if there was extra time we did read-aloud time.  The lessons seemed to be geared toward a classroom.  But, then, I think Science experiments are better not alone.