Hands-On Earth Science Activities For Grades K-6, 2nd Edition

Acknowledgments.

About the Author.

About the Library.

How to Use This Book.

Correlation with National Standards Grid.

Key to Icons.

Listing of Activities by Topic.

Section One: Air.

To the Teacher.

Activity 1.1: How Can You Test to See Whether Air Takes Up Space?

Activity 1.2: How Can You Pour Air?

Activity 1.3: How Can You Tell Whether Air Has Weight?

Activity 1.4: How Can You Feel the Weight and Pressure of Air?

Activity 1.5: What Is Another Way to Feel Air Pressure?

Activity 1.6: How Can Air Be Compressed?

Activity 1.7: What Is Another Way Air Can Be Compressed?

Activity 1.8: What Can a Card Teach You About Air?

Activity 1.9: How Can You Crush a Gallon Can Without Touching It?

Activity 1.10: How Can You Crush a Soda Can with Air Pressure?

Activity 1.11: How Can Air Pressure Make Things Stronger?

Activity 1.12: How Can Air Help Us Drink?

Activity 1.13: How Does Air Pressure Affect Water Flow?

Activity 1.14: How Hard Can Air Push?

Activity 1.15: How Can You Put an Egg into a Bottle?

Activity 1.16: How Can You Put a Water Balloon into a Bottle?

Activity 1.17: How Much Can You Lift by Blowing?

Activity 1.18: How Can Air Pressure Help Airplanes Fly?

Activity 1.19: What Is the Relationship Between Moving Air and Its Pressure?

Activity 1.20: How Far Can You Blow a Ping-Pong Ball from a Funnel?

Activity 1.21: Why Can’t the Ball Escape the Air Stream?

Activity 1.22: How Can You Make an Atomizer with a Drinking Straw?

Activity 1.23: What Happens When Air Is Heated?

Activity 1.24: How Can You Tell That Warm Air Rises?

Activity 1.25: What Happens When Air Gets Warmer?

Activity 1.26: How Can We Watch Air Expand and Contract?

Activity 1.27: How Can Bubbles Show Us That Air Expands and Contracts?

Activity 1.28: How Does Cold Air Behave?

Activity 1.29: What Happens When Warm Air and Cold Air Mix?

Activity 1.30: How Can You Get Water Out of the Air?

Activity 1.31: How Can a Balloon Remain Inflated with Its Mouth Open?

Air Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Two: Water.

To the Teacher.

Activity 2.1: Why Do Some Things Float on Water and Others Do Not?

Activity 2.2: How Does Water Disappear?

Activity 2.3: What Is Condensation?

Activity 2.4: How Did the Bottle Get Wet on the Outside When the Water Is Sealed on the Inside?

Activity 2.5: What Is Another Way to Get Moisture Out of the Air?

Activity 2.6: How Can You Boil Water in a Paper Cup?

Activity 2.7: How Can We See Water Pressure?

Activity 2.8: How Can You Make Water Pile Up on a Cup?

Activity 2.9: How Many Nails Can You Put into a Full Glass of Water?

Activity 2.10: How Does Pepper Swim?

Activity 2.11: How Can You Make a Soap Motorboat?

Activity 2.12: How Can You Pour Light?

Activity 2.13: How Can a Water Drop Make Things Appear Larger?

Activity 2.14: How Can Water Make a Coin Appear?

Activity 2.15: What Do Bears Know That Many People Don’t?

Activity 2.16: What Can You Learn from an Egg?

Activity 2.17: How Can We Use a Soda Straw to Compare Density of Liquids?

Activity 2.18: How Does Temperature Affect the Speed of Molecules?

Activity 2.19: What Happens When Water Changes to a Solid?

Activity 2.20: How Can You Make a “Worm”?

Activity 2.21: How Do Raisins Dance?

Activity 2.22: How Does Lake Water Compare with Seawater?

Activity 2.23: Which Changes Temperature More Easily, Land or Water?

Activity 2.24: How Are Ocean Currents Affected by Wind?

Activity 2.25: How Are Ocean Currents Affected by Temperature?

Water Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Three: Weather.

To the Teacher.

Activity 3.1: How Can You Make Rain?

Activity 3.2: How Can You Make a Cloud?

Activity 3.3: How Can You Make a Thermometer?

Activity 3.4: How Can We Detect and Measure Changes in Atmospheric Pressure?

Activity 3.5: How Can We Measure Moisture in the Air?

Activity 3.6: What Is Another Way to Measure Humidity?

Activity 3.7: How Can We Compare the Wet/Dry Bulb and Hair Hygrometers?

Activity 3.8: What Does a Wind Vane Do, and How Can You Make One?

Activity 3.9: What Is Another Design for a Wind Vane?

Activity 3.10: How Can You Make a More Sensitive Wind Vane?

Activity 3.11: How Can You Use a Wind Vane?

Activity 3.12: How Can Wind Speed Be Measured?

Activity 3.13: How Does an Anemometer Work?

Activity 3.14: How Can Rainfall Be Measured?

Activity 3.15: How Can You Operate a Weather Station?

Activity 3.16: What Is the Best Source of Information for Predicting Weather?

Activity 3.17: What Are Some Unusual Ways to Predict and Explain Weather?

Activity 3.18: How Do Heating and Cooling Affect Air Currents?

Activity 3.19: What Can We Learn from a Convection Box?

Activity 3.20: What Makes Rain?

Activity 3.21: What Is a Cold Front?

Weather Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Four: The Earth.

To the Teacher.

Activity 4.1: How Are Size and Distance Shown on a Map?

Activity 4.2: How Can You Show Your School Grounds on a Sheet of Paper?

Activity 4.3: How Can a Flat Map Show Three Dimensions?

Activity 4.4: What Are Contour Lines?

Activity 4.5: What Is a Contour Map?

Activity 4.6: How High and Low Are the Earth’s Mountains and Valleys?

Activity 4.7: How Can a Flat Map Represent the Globe-Shaped Earth?

Activity 4.8: How Does the Nature of the Earth’s Surface Affect Atmospheric Temperature?

Activity 4.9: How Do Mountains Affect Yearly Rainfall?

Activity 4.10: What Can You Learn from a Square Meter of Soil?

Activity 4.11: How Is Soil Made?

Activity 4.12: What Factors Affect Water Erosion?

Activity 4.13: In What Order Do Materials Settle in Water?

Activity 4.14: How Are Rocks Classified?

Activity 4.15: How Do Rocks Compare in Hardness?

Activity 4.16: What Color Streak Does a Rock Make?

Activity 4.17: How Do Rocks React to Vinegar?

Activity 4.18: Which Rocks Are Attracted by a Magnet?

Activity 4.19: Which Rocks Conduct Electricity?

Activity 4.20: How Can Rocks Be Dissolved in Water?

Activity 4.21: How Do Crystals Form?

Activity 4.22: What Type of Crystals Do Rocks Have?

Activity 4.23: What Is Conglomerate Rock?

Activity 4.24: How Can You Start a Rock Collection?

Activity 4.25: What Other Classifications of Rocks Are There?

Activity 4.26: How Can You Measure the Density of a Rock?

Activity 4.27: How Can You Make a Permanent Shell Imprint?

Activity 4.28: How Is Snow Compacted into Ice to Form Glaciers?

Activity 4.29: How Is the Earth Like Your Body?

Activity 4.30: How Is the Earth Like a Jigsaw Puzzle?

Activity 4.31: What Are the Earth’s Plates?

Activity 4.32: What Causes Earthquakes?

Activity 4.33: How Can You Make a Volcano Replica?

Activity 4.34: What Is the Rock Cycle?

Activity 4.35: How Old Is the Earth?

Earth Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Five: Ecology.

To the Teacher.

Activity 5.1: What Is a Simple Plant-Animal Community?

Activity 5.2: What Is a Pond Community?

Activity 5.3: What Is a Simple Ecosystem?

Activity 5.4: How Is Energy Transferred in an Ecosystem?

Activity 5.5: Where Do People Fit into an Ecosystem?

Activity 5.6: How Do You Fit into a Personal Ecosystem?

Activity 5.7: How Do You Live at Home?

Activity 5.8: How Do You Live in Your Classroom?

Activity 5.9: How Does Our School Community Function?

Activity 5.10: How Is Your School Like an Ecosystem?

Activity 5.11: Where Can We Begin?

Activity 5.12: What Is Litter?

Activity 5.13: What Is in the Air Besides Air?

Activity 5.14: How Does Our Water Become Polluted?

Activity 5.15: How Can You Help an Ecosystem?

Activity 5.16: How Can We Improve Our Environment?

Activity 5.17: How Can We Involve Others?

Activity 5.18: What Is a Wise Consumer?

Activity 5.19: What Changes Have Happened Where You Live?

Activity 5.20: Do You Conserve Your Resources Wisely?

Activity 5.21: How Can You Reuse Newspaper?

Activity 5.22: Which Solids Decompose Easily?

Activity 5.23: How Can You Make a Water Treatment Plant?

Activity 5.24: What Have We Learned?

Ecology Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Six: Above the Earth.

To the Teacher.

Activity 6.1: What Is the History of Flight?

Activity 6.2: What Is a Wind Tunnel?

Activity 6.3: How Does Shape Affect Lift?

Activity 6.4: How Can You Build a Simple Glider?

Activity 6.5: Will Your Airplane Soar?

Activity 6.6: How Can We Turn Our Gliders?

Activity 6.7: How Can We Make Our Gliders Go Up and Down?

Activity 6.8: What Have We Learned About Flying?

Activity 6.9: What Aircraft Will You Fly?

Activity 6.10: How Well Can You Fly?

Activity 6.11: Can You Create an Airplane of a New Design?

Activity 6.12: How Will You Design an Airplane for a Special Task?

Activity 6.13: How Can a Ball Help You Move?

Activity 6.14: What Type of Energy Is This?

Activity 6.15: What Can a Marble Game Teach Us?

Activity 6.16: How Can We Use Action-Reaction?

Activity 6.17: How Can You Make a Soda Straw Rocket?

Activity 6.18: How Do Other Forces Affect Your Rocket’s Performance?

Activity 6.19: How Does Gravity Affect Objects?

Activity 6.20: How Does Inertia Affect Objects?

Activity 6.21: How Can You Put a Coin in a Glass Without Touching the Coin?

Activity 6.22: How Do Gravity and Inertia Affect Space Travel?

Activity 6.23: How Can You Compare Gravity and Inertia?

Activity 6.24: How Does Weightlessness Feel?

Above the Earth Word Searches.

Do You Recall?

Section Seven: Beyond the Earth.

To the Teacher.

Activity 7.1: What Does Our Earth Look Like?

Activity 7.2: How Does the Earth Move?

Activity 7.3: What’s the Difference Between the Rotation and the Revolution of the Earth?

Activity 7.4: How Can We Tell Time with Soda Straws?

Activity 7.5: What Paths Do the Earth and Similar Objects Follow?

Activity 7.6: How Do Man-Made Satellites Help Us?

Activity 7.7: How Is Our Moon a Natural Satellite?

Activity 7.8: What Is the Appearance of the Surface of the Moon?

Activity 7.9: How Does the Moon Give Off Light?

Activity 7.10: How Does the Moon Travel Around the Earth?

Activity 7.11: What Are Phases of the Moon?

Activity 7.12: How Can We Make a More Accurate Moon Model?

Activity 7.13: How Can You Safely View a Solar Eclipse?

Activity 7.14: What Is a Solar System?

Activity 7.15: How Can You Study a Planet?

Activity 7.16: How Large Is the Solar System?

Activity 7.17: How Can You Make a Distance Scale Solar System in Your School?

Activity 7.18: How Can We Learn More About the Solar System and Space?

Beyond the Earth Word Searches.

Do You Recall?