Newspaper+About+Science

4-?-09

Mrs. Preston Makes Science FUN!! By: Nick Hopkins

At Hoover Elementary in Mrs. Preston's 6th grade science classes they do some pretty fun stuff. Last quarter they were talking about plate tectonics, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Now they are learning about chemistry. In chemistry they are learning about matter, physical properties, mass, weight, volume, density, buoyancy, chemical properties, flammability, corrosion, pH level, and rust. Last quarter the 6th graders made models of the earth with plates, continents, fault lines, and plate boundries. The earth modles had to be at least eight inches in diameter and could be made out of Styro-Foam balls or out of paper machie on a balloon. Paper machie is when you mix water and flour together to get a paste. Then you put strips of newspaper in the paste and put them on a balloon and let them dry over night. Then they painted them of colored the balls, and did the interior of the earth which includes the crust, lithosphere, asthenosphere, lower mantle, outer core and inner core.

Now they are learning chemistry they get to mix chemicals with cabbage juice to see if it was a strong acid, a neutral, a strong base. The chemicals are vinegar, lemon juice, asprin, water, salt water, tummy tablets, rubbing alcohol, drain cleaner, and baking soda. They are seeing if the chemicals turn pink for a strong acid, stays purple or close to purple for a neutral, or blue or green for a strong base. Next they'll be learning about physics. They will be talking about what a force is and what are the laws of motion.