Science

Yesterday was only the eighth day of science (including the beach cleanup), and we have gotten off to a quick start!

Our first project was to make observations about three different mystery seeds, record those observations in newly decorated science notebooks and follow a series of written directions to plant the seeds. Most have predicted poppy seed, amaranth and some type of citrus for the seed types. The exciting news is that at least two types of the mystery seeds have sprouted! Students recorded observations of the first sprouts this past Monday including measuring sprout height in cm and mm.

We worked together to analyze the compiled beach cleanup data from the whole school. In total Orchard School cleaned up 765 pieces of trash weighing approximately 38lbs. Students did lots of math to determine that the average number of trash pieces per person was 13 compared to 5 per person for the California participants of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) in 2015. However, since the ICC participants found much larger items (like refrigerators and tires) they amassed more weight in trash.  Fifth and sixth graders then took on the challenge of translating our data into Orchard school equivalents similar to the infographics used in the ICC reports. For example, they determined that we collected enough cigarette butts that when lined up in sequence would stretch all the way around the biggest tree in the willows. Also, the number of plastic pieces we found would fill one and half 24oz Kleen canteens and when stacked up on each other the number of plastic bottle caps we found is the same as the height of 6 pink erasers balanced end to end.

Students also had their first engineering challenge - building a bridge that spans 12 inches made of only 25 popsicle sticks, 4 binder clips and no more than 4ft of masking tape. The strongest bridge held 20 notebooks before collapsing.