Can you hear me now?

Students learned that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound.  First, students created paper cup telephones and explored how sound vibrations travel from a cup across string and into another cup.  Then, students tried to make their paper cup telephones better by changing their design. 

Next students created water xylophones and explored how pitch changes with the amount of water in the jar.  Student quickly learned that jars with more water had a lower pitch, and less water produced a higher pitch.

Connected to the Grid

  Change is Simple in the CLIC lab

By Student Blogger Lexie

Have you ever done a Change is Simple project with your class? Well, my class, Mrs. Gibbas’s class did one on Monday, March 28th.

My class, Mrs. Gibbas’s class, went to the CLIC lab down the hall at 9:00am. We were about to do our third Change is Simple project, yet our first time going to the CLIC lab for it, as we have only done Change is Simple in our classroom before. As we entered the room, we were greeted by four Change is Simple workers and all the materials they had brought. One of them stood centered in the front of the room, “Hello!” she said, “Do any of you remember my name?” A classmate of mine, Ryan, raised his hand after about five seconds and the lady called on him, as he was the only one with his hand up. “Is it Kat?” he said. “Correct! I am Kat,” she replied. She then said the names of the other Change Is Simple workers. 

Next, Kat asked us to raise our hand to be a volunteer, but she warned us that we would be made fun of a bit. Many people raised their hands, but Ryan was picked. He went to the front of the room, and was directed to sit next to a doll house.

She then kept turning on some fake electrical things in the house, to show all the electricity that each item used. 

We then all talked about ways we can save electricity. Some of the things were to take a shorter shower, have cereal instead of cooking, just wear a different shirt instead of just washing one, and turning off the lights and just using the light from the window.

Then she asked us what we used to measure electricity, and after a few wrong answers, we came up with WATTS. Then I was called up to try to light up a light bulb by moving a lever. I wasn't able to light it up, other than the two seconds I did. Then Will was called up, and got it on for about five seconds. She then took me back to try another light bulb, and this one lit up almost instantly.

Kat said it was because the first light bulb was 150 WATTS, and the other light bulb took only seven WATTS.

Next, Kat put us into four groups. She gave us each a number, then we held up our number with our fingers. She put each group at a table, and gave us a sheet. The people in my group were me, Jake, Will, and Maci.

With the sheet, we were instructed to choose one item from each of four places they had made, and put a prediction of how many WATTS it used.

Then we went around the room, going to each station, and we used a special WATTS tester to see how many WATTS it used.

In my group, our most crazy outcome was that we predicted the Ipad would be 850 WATTS but was only 7.3 WATTS.

We then ended the Change is Simple project by saying, “CHANGE IS SIMPLE!” all in unison.

Beaver Adaptations

How do beavers adapt to their environment?

Team Gibbas students have been learning how animals have physical structures, or physical adaptations, that help them to survive in their environment.  Animals also have behavioral adaptations, or things that they do, to help them to survive.

On Thursday, students learned about the beaver's adaptations in a fun way.  Students were asked to volunteer to "become a beaver" in front of their classmates.  Nearly every student volunteered and one student was chosen using fair sticks.  As props were placed on this student to show the beaver's adaptations other students filled out a graphic organizer to record their learning.

Thank you Mrs. LaRussa for creating this informative and interactive learning opportunity!

Excellent Energy Proposals

By Student Blogger Adelyn 

It all started with a book about renewable energy and talking with our groups. Then we kept researching and then we finally had our proposals on January 24th, 2020. We made a model and a slideshow. The geothermal group went one step further and made a tri-fold. You might be wondering what are the different types of renewable energy the students studied. Well the answer is water energy, wind energy, solar energy, and geothermal energy.

Every class in the fourth grade did the energy PBL. Some groups had different ideas for different classes. Like in our class the wind group thought that wind energy was a good idea but in Mrs. Kelleher’s class they had a different idea about wind energy. Also we made models in CLIC to represent our plan.

We had been working on this project or about a month, and we had gotten enough information to make great presentations.

So over all we had a really good energy presentations.

Rumbling Into Amazing Earthquakes

Rumbling Into Amazing Earthquakes

By Student Bloggers: Jac, Nathan, Ruby, Adelyn, and Ava

Soil bounced out of the pan and fell on the table as Ruby tapped the pan violently with a wooden block. The reason why we were doing this project is because we were trying to see how an earthquake can affect earth's landforms and  surface. The supplies that we used were a tin foil pan. Then we put foam in the pan. After that we put soil on top of the foam. Finally, we put it on a surface where there would be a crack in between. Then Ruby started tapping the pan. Then suddenly something emerged! Was it a foam block? The block of foam was supposed to represent the tectonic plates. Then we all had a discussion about what happened to the model. In the discussion we were saying that the earthquakes can make new landforms like mountains, valleys, canyons, plateaus and hills. This was a fun learning activity that we wish we could do again.

Can you create a landform from a topographic map?

Team Gibbas students have been learning about landforms and topographic maps in science.  This week students were partnered up and tasked with the assignment to create a landform out of a clay.  Next students measured the height of their landform in centimeters. Then students used dental floss to cut their landform into 1 cm. wide discs and traced each disc onto graph paper to create a topographic map.  Finally, there was a challenge.  A different partner group was given the topographic map and they had to try to create a landform that matched the original by using the topographic map.

Students did a fabulous job learning about landforms and how to create and read topographic maps!

Grade 4 Common Core Standard: 4-ESS2-2: Analyze and interpret maps of Earth's mountain ranges, deep ocean trenches, volcanoes, and earthquake epicenters to describe patterns of these features and their locations relative to boundaries between continents and oceans.

How does a beaver use physical and behavioral adaptations to survive?

 Beaver Adaptations

By A Mystery Student Blogger

¨Does anyone want to volunteer?¨ Ms. Cahill asked.

Almost all the class raised their hands. It was Wednesday and we were in the CLIC room learning about beavers and how they adapt with different body parts and behaviors.

In science Team Gibbas is learning about animal adaptations and that day they were learning about beavers. I was the volunteer and I put on props to make myself look like a beaver, for example I put on glasses, beaver teeth, a tail, flippers, foam padding, a scarf, and hairy hands. From this activity we learned how beavers adapt and sense danger. Did you know that a beaver can hold its breath underwater for 15 minutes?

Endangered Animals

Endangered Animals By Student Blogger Annie

Did you know that sea otters have the thickest fur of any animal in the planet? We learned this and many other facts when Change is Simple visited our school Monday, January 14th and taught us about endangered animals.They had us do a lot of fun activities.

The first activity they had us do was compare yourself to an animal. “I am like the chimpanzee because we both…”

 

The second activity we did was put your animal card where you think it lives on a giant world map.

We became scientists and we created a species profile for our animal. We had three questions to answer about the animal we were given. The first question was “what is the name of your animal?” The second question was “what type of animal is it?” For instance is it a mammal, reptile, amphibian, bird or fish. The third question was why is your animal endangered? The choices they gave us were illegal hunting or fishing, pollution, habitat loss or sickness and disease.

The last activity we did was musical chairs but instead of chairs we used food and water resources.

 

Finally Change is Simple issued the fourth grade a challenge to see which class could pick up the most trash at recess.

Thank you Change is Simple we always love when you come to our school!

Learning About Infrared Technology

Which color is the coolest?

By Student Blogger - Lyra

On Tuesday, Mr. DiCarlo, a professor at Merrimack College, came in and and taught us about infrared energy by using a special camera. The camera detects how hot or cold certain things are. Mr. DiCarlo gave us ice cubes to rub on our faces. Blue is cold, so when Mr. DiCarlo pointed the camera at us, our hands and faces and  were blue from rubbing the ice cubes! The camera can see through a black bag, so if you put your hand in it, then the camera would see your hand. I thought learning how the camera detected radiation was cool and interesting.

Thank you Mr. DiCarlo for helping us learn science!

Solving problems the Rube Goldberg way

As a culminating activity for our science unit exploring the ways in which energy is transferred, Team Gibbas scientists designed and built machines similar to Rube Goldberg's devices.  Students researched Rube Goldberg's devices then chose a problem or task for their machine to complete.

Check out the pictures and student written descriptions of machines.

Akaden

We made a Rube Goldberg machine that is called Akaden that allowed us to smash a bug. At first, we tried to make the Akaden open a door. But, then the force of the shoe swinging and hitting the door was not enough to push the door open. So then, we went through a lot of thinking. But finally, we thought of what the Akaden can do. We decided to make the Akaden smash a bug. It took lots of attempts for it to still not work but it is fine. It started with a wheel that was hanging from a rope of tape that allowed it to zipline down a jump rope. Then, it when it got to the end it hit  some giant boards that acted as Domino's. Then the last domino fell on a piece of tape that was holding a shoe from falling that caused the shoe to fall and smash the bug. (a clothespin acted as the bug).

Sharpening a pencil

We designed our Rube Goldberg machine to sharpen a pencil automatically. A fan was supposed to push down some dominoes and push a pencil on a train into the sharpener. Were we successful? No. Unfortunately we could not get the contraption to work. But we had a lot of fun making it and showing it to the class.

Open Desk Machine

Our objective for the Rube Goldberg machine was to open a desk. It starts with closing the door which made a rock hit dominoes that hit a ball. The ball went down a tube and hit another ball which went down another tube and hit more domino's. Then they hit a ball to knock over a pole and the pole would hit the button to turn an air pump on and blow up a beach ball to open the desk. Our machine was successful until the ball didn’t hit the stick as hard as we needed it to so the pump didn’t turn on. The ball did not blow up so we had to press the button ourselves.  

                  The Ultimate Paper Passer

Our machine included wood, nails, dominoes, string, a tennis ball, a box, a pulley, and paper. The problem we were trying to solve was passing out papers and taking the spot of the teacher or the paper passers. Our machine didn't work at first because the papers were getting stuck in the box so somebody started pushing the papers so they could get out onto the desk. In the end our invention worked with some help.

Monkey C Monkey Flip a Page

Our Rube Goldberg machine was called Monkey C Monkey Flip a Page. Its purpose was to flip a page on an easel. The materials we used were; an easel, meter sticks, rope, yellow duck tape, a soccer ball, scissors, rubber/bouncy balls, a chair, string, and a pulley. The pulley did not work for us because it was set up wrong. Our machine starting off by rolling a soccer ball down the meter stick ramp, then the soccer ball would hit a pair of scissors tied to a piece of string which would make it swing and break a weak piece of tape that was attached to an easel which was also attached to a light bouncy ball and the light bouncy ball was attached to a page on the easel. Next, we were supposedly supposed to use a pulley that was taped to two big bouncy balls and the machine was supposed flip the page using the pulley. Unfortunately our machine was not successful.

The Bell Goes Ring-a-Ding-Ding

Our machine was supposed to ring a bell. We did that by rolling a marble down a pvc pipe. The marble would go into a blue track and when the marble came out of the blue tube it would hit some dominoes that hit a car and the car drove and hit a bell. That is how our Rube Goldberg machine worked. WE WERE SUCCESSFUL 10 TIMES! We were really proud of our work. We each brought in our own materials and it went very well.

Project Open Sesame

Our problem was to open a book and we succeeded one and a half times. It worked by us knocking a domino down and then other dominoes would all fall down knocking a few dominoes tied together. Then the tied together dominoes would  fall down and knock the book down flat on the desk, opened.

Deskinator

Our problem was to open a desk. We made a paper ramp that balanced on six yard sticks that were taped together. The paper ramp also balanced on books. Then we put a paper ball on the ramp and it  was supposed to hit dominoes and push another ball. Next the other ball was supposed to hit books but instead it hit a heavy ball. The ball was attached to a pulley and on the other side of the pulley it was attached to the inside cover of the desk. Unfortunately we did not succeed but we hope next time we will.

Ring a-ling ling bell

Our Rube Goldberg machine was called Ring a-ling ling bell. It was supposed to be a simple way to push in a chair. But we didn't have enough time to build it, so we just changed our idea to a simple way to ring a bell. But we didn't like that idea so we changed it to Ring a-ling  ling bell. A simple way to push your chair was paper towel tubes that would have a bouncy ball in it, and the bouncy ball go down the track and hit a basketball which would hit a dictionary which would hit the legs on a chair and push in the chair. Like we said we had no time for that. In Ring a-ling ling bell, lots of paper towel tubes were attached to each other  to make a track. Somebody would hold up a bell and this time a marble would hit the bell. Then the bell was supposed to ring. We were very successful. We had around twenty fails and about six successes. We are very proud about our work. We also had lots of fun doing the Rube Goldberg machine!

Are egg drops all that they are cracked up to be?

Egg Drop

By Student Blogger Sam

We are doing the egg drop, will your egg survive? The egg drop is actually supposed to be a science experiment of what happens to a egg when it hits the ground from up “high.” We are supposed to be  dropping it from six feet that's not very high so the teachers decided we should actually drop it from a crane sixty feet up in the air.

Everybody in the classroom, including teachers, participated and had fun in this experiment, which turned out to be sort of a STEM challenge. On Tuesday, October 23rd we built our egg holders. We used many, many feet of bubble wrap, we also used cardboard boxes, trash bags and much, much more. Not every group used the same materials. I can say one thing, EVERYBODY used some bubble wrap because one group had over 50’ of it.

Then on Thursday, October 25th we were ready to test our egg holders to see which eggs would survive.

Here are some interviews that we conducted before the big drop.

 
And then it was time for the eggs to be dropped from the crane.

We had two teams that their egg survived! One group that survived had  a lot of bubble wrap and a big parachute.

The other group had paper packing material, bubble wrap, socks, a gum container, and three parachutes.

The other eggs weren't so lucky.

Everybody had fun and we all hoped we would do it again in fourth grade or we could do it again in fifth grade!

Endangered Animals

Change is Simple

Today Team Gibbas students learned about endangered animals and what students can do to help them.  First students were given picture cards of endangered animals.  Students were asked to make a connection with the endangered animal and make a statement, "I am like the lizard because I like to climb on things."  Then students switched cards with three other students.

Next, students worked with a partner to write about their animal.  Students included the name of their animal, where their animal lives, and two adjectives to describe their habitat.  Finally, students made a guess as to why they thought their animal might be endangered.  Reasons that animals are endangered included habitat loss, pollution, over-hunting, and disease.

Later students played the Shrinking Resources game. This game is similar to musical chairs but instead of competing for chairs students competed for land or water resources.  As the game progressed it became more and more difficult to find the land and water resources that are necessary to live because oil spills, pollution, and building projects kept taking away land and water.

Thank you TESPTO and Change is Simple for another great learning experience!

Egg Drop

Egg Drop

By: Student Blogger Eva

On Monday, April 30th, Team Gibbas and Team Kelleher did an egg drop for science. We had to protect an egg as it was dropped off the roof. Here’s how it worked: We were put into groups on Friday. We gathered materials to protect the egg over the weekend. On Monday, we put the egg in a shoe box and bundled it up with the things we brought in.

Here are some of the materials we brought in; bubble wrap, old t-shirts, and egg cartons.

Then we went outside to see Mr. Jones, the custodian, drop our eggs off the roof.

All of the eggs survived!

Then we went inside to record our observations in our science notebook. We all loved the egg drop!

Life Cycle of Stuff

"Where does that pencil you are using come from?"

"How did that t-shirt you are wearing go from being cotton to a finished t-shirt in a store?"

These and other questions were answered as students explored the "Life Cycle of Stuff" with Change is Simple.  Change is Simple is an organization dedicated to instilling lifelong social and environmental responsibility.

Students began to look at items in a new way by thinking about what natural resources are used to create products.  Students were first tasked with matching a product with a picture of a natural resource that was used to create it.

T-shirts are made from cotton.

Cans are made from aluminum.

Trees are used for making the paper in books.

Wool from sheep is used for sweaters.

Bee's wax is used for candles.

Next students learned the steps that it takes for natural resources to become finished products in stores: natural resources, processing, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, and usage.  Students played a memory game whereby each group was given a product and the group needed to find the cards that represented the steps needed to create their finished product.  

Congratulations goes to the t-shirt group for finding all of their cards first!

Nuclear Engineer Visits Proctor School

Nuclear Engineer Visits Our School

By Student Bloggers: Alex, John, and Gabriele

Last Friday, Mr. Gallant, a nuclear engineer visited Proctor Elementary School. He showed us all about nuclear energy. One thing Mr. Gallant taught us is that once you split an atom you cannot use it again. He also told us to never leave a nuclear power plant unsupervised. Mr. Gallant showed us the building where he worked. Mr. Gallant works at Pilgrim Power Plant in Plymouth, MA.

It is a really big building.

We asked him a lot of questions including, "How long have you worked at your job?" and "Are atoms dangerous to touch?"

Mr. Gallant got interested in his job when working on a nuclear submarine in the navy. Did you know that Mr. Gallant is our teacher Miss Gallant’s dad?

Thank you for teaching us about nuclear energy Mr. Gallant!

Learning to Use Science Tools

Fourth graders were able to dive into science this week and to practice using many different science tools.  Students used graduated cylinders and measuring cups to measure liquid amounts, thermometers to measure temperature, timers to measure elapsed time, and pan balances to measure weight.  We also measured our arm spans and heights.  What tool do you think students used to determine those measurements?