Science Friday - The Scientific Method

This morning we were introduced to the scientific method. I passed out this to the children and we talked about each step:

I told the children that our classroom recently received a gift from Ella's parents - a brand new air popper and two different types of popcorn. We had black kernels and yellow kernels. I said I was inspired when I saw the different colors and wondered what, if any, difference there was.

Together we came up with a question: Does the color of kernel determine how many will pop? Children came up with their hypotheses - some thought the black ones would pop better, some thought the yellow ones would, and others thought it wouldn't matter at all.

Each group carefully counted out 100 kernels of each. I reminded them that scientists are very careful to only change ONE thing - called a variable. We needed to make sure everything else was "fair", including the type of popper and the number of kernels.

After we popped the kernels, more counting was done to determine which color popcorn kernel resulted in the most kernels popped. I won't spoil the surprise, so be sure to ask your child tonight. Perhaps they can think of more popcorn experiments to do this weekend!