Category Archives: Elementary

Fifth graders participated in an egg drop challenge to help them learn about the practices of science and how to think like a scientist. After asking questions, they had 30 minutes to design and build a model with the available materials that would protect an egg in a drop. We tested the models and, afterwards, analyzed the data to think about how they would revise their initial models to make them better.

Today the first grade class released 18 butterflies. The class has watched their butterflies metamorphosize from caterpillars. Mrs. Marie Nelson and Mrs. Melissa Mracek from our county extension office have visited with us over the past few weeks. They taught us many things about the life cycle of the butterfly and the parts of a butterfly. If you see any painted lady butterflies flying around town, they might be ours!

Fifth graders traveled to Chadron State Park for their Trout in the Classroom field trip. We started off the cool, wet day with some fishing in the pond. We got our hands dirty baiting our hooks and caught several bluegill and a couple smallmouth bass. We even had one student catch his very first fish ever! Next we released our trout. We received these trout eggs in January from Nebraska Game and Parks, and raised them in our classroom fish tank. Students were a little sad to say goodbye. Finally we went on the hunt for aquatic macroinvertebrates aka water bugs. Macroinvertebrates are helpful in determining water quality. The damselfly nymphs and dragonfly nymphs are indicators of potentially good water quality.

Second grade had “Camp Learn A Lot” this week. We brought in tents, sleeping bags, flashlights and a campfire! We read so many camping books under the “stars”, learned and wrote about how to eat a worm, wrote and shared spooky campfire stories, read maps and made maps, constellations, bees and how they make honey, and we had a couple special readers come to camp! Turns out, learning can be fun!

Fifth graders have been busy learning about molecules! We have been exploring what causes different types of molecules to dissolve. To further understand, we first investigated the attraction between molecules of the same kind. We placed drops of water on a penny then did the same with oil to see which liquid would gather the most drops. We observed that water molecules held together better than oil molecules.

Next, we tested different emulsifiers to see which would keep two liquids, water and oil, from separating to create a stable mixture. After testing flour, cornstarch, and lecithin, we found that lecithin is the best emulsifier to keep oil and water mixed.