Lower Elementary (LE; 5-7 years old)

Fossils: Learning about different kinds of fossils and comparing different solutions used to create fossils using simple ingredients.

Layers of the Ocean: Learning about the depth of the ocean, the animals that live at each layer of the ocean, and using the density of different liquids to construct a liquid tower that represents each layer of the ocean.  

Weathering: Investigating and comparing the effects of chemical versus physical weathering on rocks.

Life Cycles: Constructing the life cycle of plants and animals, and labeling their similarities and differences.  

Growing without sunlight:  Investigate the effects of blocking sunlight from a plant’s leaves for different lengths of time.

Growing Plants: Perform a long investigation manipulating the needs of plants to successfully grow.

Heat Energy: Investigation of the effects of different insulating materials and record changes in temperature.

Potential and Kinetic Energy: Learning about Newton’s third law of motion to create an action through the use of a simple energy force that reacts the opposite way of the moving object.

Brain hat and Lobe Function: Learning about the brain’s lobes and their functions by completing a large brain puzzle. 

Proteins and Cells: Creating a clay model of a plant cell and an edible model of an animal cells to learn about their parts and functions. Students will compare the similarities and differences between animals and plant cells, while continuing the use of the microscope to get a closer look at samples of real animal and plant cells.

Photosynthesis in Action: The use of plants and volume measurement tools to estimate a leaf’s active production of oxygen through the promotion or prevention of photosynthesis.

Glucose Content: Designing and building a food oven that will be utilized to produce food chemical reactions; and the active comparison of different kinds of sugars (e.g., glucose and sucrose) in food.  

Blocking UV: Controlled comparison of how effective different brands of sunblock with the same blocking concentration are at blocking UV rays using UV-sensitive color changing beads.  

Chlorophyll: Utilization of a chromatographic methods to visualize, measure, and compare the pigments in different kinds of leaves.  

Plant Food: Measuring the production of starch in plants that have been exposed to different amount of sunlight to make connections between the starch concentration and photosynthesis.  

Bacterial Growth: Performing a gram stain on grown bacterial cultures to measure and label gram-positive versus gram-negative bacteria. 

Newton’s Second Law of Motion: Designing and building a functional car with recycled materials and comparing the forces required to achieve a change in motion. 

Newton’s Inertia Ring: Using inertia and gravity to achieve a tricky task that compares different approaches.

Cellular Proteins: Compare the function and structure of white and red blood cells, and create miniature models of plant and animal cells. 

Microfeatures: Application and mastery of a light microscope to compare the fine structural differences of salt solution samples prepared on glass slides.