Mr. Bear Lessons: What is Science?
This activity will introduce younger audiences to what science is.
Students will listen to the picture story of Mr. Bear and how he used science to solve his problem of quickly watering the garden (by finding the biggest container using the question-guess-test-answer method). Then, students will use the question-guess-test-answer method to figure out which container could hold the most water.
What You Need
Materials per class:
- Pictures of a bear and each stage of his using science to test his watering cans attached examples - one set per class.
- 2 1 L plastic beaker filled with water
- 2 funnels
- 2 film canisters or other fair measuring device
- 2 sets of 5 differently shaped containers
- 2 large trays to hold the containers as we pour water
- 8 data sheets
- Crayons for recording our data
- Masking tape to label the containers with colour codes
Guide:
Additional:
- Mr. Bear Lessons: What is Science - Lesson 1 Datasheets
- Mr. Bear Lessons: What is Science - Lesson 1 Drawings.PDF
Safety Notes
Ensure you are familiar with Let's Talk Science's precautions with respect to safe virtual outreach to youth.
What To Do
A. Building a Definition of Science
- Ask students what do they think science is? What does it mean?
- Define science as a way we can answer questions we have about things around us.
- For example, what if this bear is trying to decide how he can water all the plants in his garden quickly? He has several different watering cans he can choose.
- His question could be, which of this cans will hold the most water?
- That's the first step in science. - to ask a question.
- Next he could guess which one would hold the most water.
- Second step - guess the answer to the question.
- How would he decide? He could test all the containers. Would that be fair/repeatable
- Third step - make a test to find the answer.
- Look at what he found, the answers, before deciding what to do next.
- Fourth step - answer the question from what happened during the test.
B. Running our own scientific test (10 minutes)
- Split the class into 2 groups, one will work with a volunteer and the other with the teacher - or have 2 volunteers - swap groups after.
- Our question: which of these 5 containers holds the most water?
In each group:
- Fill the large 1 L beaker with water from the sink.
- Have the students decide the order of the containers from largest to smallest and record this in the prediction/guess column of the data sheet - headed by a question mark.
- Begin the test:
- Assign students different roles during the test (e.g. one pours the water, one holds the funnel/container, one counts the number of full film canisters of water added). Make sure they're full. Record the number added by filling in the containers in the data column.
- Count how many full film canisters can be added to the container (record).
- When finished, give each container a number based on which was the largest #1 to the smallest #5 (in the results or answers column = headed by a checkmark).
- *SWAP groups and repeat the steps again.
- Compare the results between the two groups at the end to show repeat-ability (ie: it's a good test if your other people can get the same answer).
Discovery
Students learn that the amount of water an object can hold volume depends on more than just its height. They also learn to apply science as a problem-solving method.
What's Happening?
Students learn that the amount of water an object can hold volume depends on more than just its height. They also learn to apply science as a problem-solving method.