Experiments

Photosynthesis

Materials:

clear plastic funnel
clear test tube
algae, or any underwater plant
jar that the funnel can fit into
sunlit place to keep the experiment
room-temperature water
plasticine (only necessary if the test
tube and the funnel cannot fit
together)
matchbox and matches
friend or assistant to help with the
experiment

Instructions:

Step 1: Fill the jar with water and place the algae into it.

Step 2: Use the plasticine to seal the test tube to the narrow end of the funnel. Try to make it water-proof.

Step 3: If the plasticine is not solid enough, put it in a freezer for 10-20 minutes.

Step 4: Place the funnel attached to the test tube upside-down on top of the algae in the jar.

Step 5: Put the jar in a sunny place that is not too sunny, because you do not want the plasticine to soften too much.

Step 6: Wait. If you would like to, make observations every half-hour or so on what you see. When the test tube is full of clear gas, and the water is full of bubbles, take off the plasticine while keeping the test tube upside down. as soon as you have done this, quickly put your finger over the test tube.

Step 7: Have a friend or assistant light a match and then blow it out. Take your finger off the test tube and have him/her stick the extinguished match into the test tube.

What Should Happen:

The match should re-light. Once it does, be careful to take it out before it scorches the test tube. The reason this happens is because the clear gas in the test tube is oxygen. During photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide and absorb sunlight. This produces sugars, called glucose, which they need to stay alive. It also produces oxygen, a waste product, which they lose through respiration.

Core Samples

Materials:

3 or more different colours of play dough or plasticine

Several large, see-through plastic straws

Working space

Newsprint or used paper

rolling pin

Instructions:

Step 1: Cover your working area with the paper.

Step 2: Make each colour of plasticine into a ball.

Step 3: Roll each colour of plasticine out flat, but not too flat (about 1 cm thick).

Step 4: Place all of the plasticine pancakes on top of each other in any order you want.

Step 5: Stick the end of a straw into the layers of plasticine. Push it until it goes all the way through.

Step 6: Pull out the straw and write down what you see.

Step 7: Repeat the same procedure again. This time, before you stick the straw in, fold or twist the plasticine and see how the results are different.

BONUS: Repeat the same procedure, but this time try adding small blobs of colours that were not rolled out between the plasticine pancakes.

What Should Happen:

When you remove the straw, you will see the layers of plasticine in the same order you put them in. If the plasticine was folded, you should see them in the same order you put them in, then repeated backwards. For example, if the colours were represented by the letters A,B,C and D you would see this pattern: ABCDDCBA. Scientists do something similar to figure out what has happened to the rock layers in a certain place. They drill into the ground and take out long cylinders of rock. The plasticine in this experiment represents the rock layers, and the blobs of colours represent the fossils deposited in the rock layers.

Quizzes and Games

Quizzes

Click the quiz that you want to do:

Coral Reefs

Games

Click the game that you want to play:

Print-out Activities

If you click the activity it will print out. All of the activities are black and white so you do not need a colour printer.

You Can Help Us Too!

Green Tips

Fundraising

Junk for Sustainability

The way J for S works is a class can colect ‘good junk’ like clean bottle caps, those little plastic table things that support pizza boxes, cardboard, plastic shampoo bottles, cloth scraps, ect. and make awesome stuff out of them which you can sell. You can suggest doing this fundraiser to your teacher. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Pizza Duck

This duck is made out of the triangular, white plastic tables which support pizza boxes. For now, I will just call them ‘tables’. The duck’s feet are made of two of these tables, with two of the legs broken off. The body consists of one whole table, upside down, with it’s legs attached to one legless table. The wings are two more tables with two of the legs broken off, with the remaining leg stuck underneath the legless table of the body. The head is one table with one whole leg and two 1/4 legs. Underneath the head is one legless table and the beak is made up of two legless tables. The whole thing is held together with a hot glue gun.

Candle Holders

The simplest candle holder you can make is made up of one whole pizza table and one plastic bottle cap which the candle fits into. You simply glue the bottle cap on top of the pizza table and place the candle in it. This type is simple, but it actually looks quite nice.

There are many more interesting designs for candle holders, so use your imagination to design you own ones!

Picture frames

To make a picture frame, here’s what you need:

• corrogated cardboard
• wallpaper samples (preferably wood design)
• scotch tape
• string
• hard plastic packaging

First, you cut the basic form of your frame out of the cardboard. This can be done with scissors, but it is much easier with an X-acto knife. Make sure you have an adult to supervise if you use a knife. Now you need to cut two shapes out of the wallpaper sample- one shape should be just like the frame, the other should be a rectangle or square that is about a centimeter larger than the frame on every side. Cut the center out of the rectangle and make diagonal cuts to the inner corners of the frame. Then fold the rectangle around the frame and tape the frame shape on top of the tabs. Now cut a rectangle a little bigger than the inside of the frame and tape it to the back. Next cut a rectangle the size of the frame out of the wallpaper samples and tape on to the back of the frame on three sides. this is the pocket where you will put the picture. Now cut a stand out of the cardboard and tape the end diagonally to the back of the frame. tape the string to the inside of the stnd and to the back of the frame so the stand can not go out too far. If you want, bend a paper clip into an upside-down ‘V’ shape and tape it to the top of the back of the frame. this will be for hanging it on a wall.

Paper Beads

Paper beads are easy to make and look very nice. All you need are some old magazines or brochures, scissors, one pizza table leg or a skewer and tape or glue. You need to cut long triangles, about 8 centimeters long and 2 centimeters across. Then you take the wide end and begin rolling the triangle around the skewer or pizza table leg untill you get to the tip. If you are using glue, put glue along the last centimeter then stick it along the rest of the bead. If you are using tape, take a small peice (about 5 mm by 2 mm) and use it to tape the end to the rest of the bead. Here is a box of beads I made:

And a set of bracelets:

Christmas Ornaments

You can make all sorts of christmas ornaments out of junk. Here are some ideas:

• Paint lightblubs and hang them upside down on a ribbon or something. Avoid painting fluorescents–they have poisonous mercury inside of them which is a serious health hazard.
• Use an X-acto knife to cut a design into a bottle cap. Then cut the edges with scissors into a sun or flower shape.
• Wind yarn around two Q-tips to create a four point snowflake.

Junky Jewlery

Stringing things like small bottle caps, springs, bits of decorated plasic straws, reversed bottle seals, paper beads, small empty thread spools, broken zippers, and other small neat looking things together often makes very interesting jewlery.

Motion Toys

you can make neat little gadgets that move with very basic materials. I used a spool with no thread, a small rubber band, and two pizza table legs to make a little thing that you could wind up an let it walk in circles. I also made a small version of it, using a smaller thread spool, and I used a milk bottle seal and a coil from a long-gone notebook to make something thad you can push down with your finger to make it spring into the air.

Bottlecap Snake

Another easy toy you can make is a snake, which is simply a string of bottle caps, with a head and tail made out of whatever you want.

Some Other Ideas…

A pizza table fox

A face with glow in the dark Lego eyes

Something really random

My display case

Kid-Friendly Links

Here are some links by subject that should be helpful to teachers, students, and curious kids who simply want to know everything:

Coral Reefs

http://www.reef.edu.au/

Global Warming

http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/greenhouse.htm

Greenhouse Effect

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/greenhouse.html
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/greenhouse/

Ozone Layer

http://www.epa.gov/sunwise/kids/kids_ozone.html

Kyoto Protocol

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Kyoto/

Rainforests

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/rainforest/
(click here–the link is too long to put on this page)
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/www/what.html
http://kids.mongabay.com/elementary/001.html

Animals

http://asterix.ednet.lsu.edu/~edtech/rainfor/

http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/programs/education/kids/frog-pond/index.html

http://www.costarica-homeschool.com/cw/monkeys.html

Endangered Species

Spotted Owls

http://www.americanparknetwork.com/parkinfo/ra/flora/owls.html
http://www.owlinstitute.org/owls/spotted.html

Golden Toad

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bufo_periglenes.html

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