Welcome to a new school year at Upland Christian Academy!!! I am so excited to see the growth in my students and how God will be using them this coming school year.

We have been spending the first 3 weeks of school learning about the scientific method and how God is the grand designer behind all we see.  Our labs that we have done over the past few weeks have included building a tower from toothpicks and sponges, a gummy bear lab, and making paper airplanes.  And yes, behind all these labs we are learning about the scientific method, how to apply it, and studying the important components of the method.

For the toothpick and sponges lab students were given these materials to build a tower as tall as possible.  The next day students could switch out one of their variables to try to build a tower taller than their previous one.  They either had to pick longer wooden skewers or longer sturdier sponges.   Most students were able to make a tower taller, the record 62 cm!

In the gummy bear lab, students got into groups and picked from a list, 4 different liquids (variables) to choose to soak their gummy bears in for 5, 15, and 30 minutes.  Some of the different liquids with added water included soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, rubbing alchol, Hawaiian punch, salt, and sugar.  They used the triple blance beam to measure the weight in grams and made a line graph to display their data.

For their final test in our scientific method unit students made paper airplanes and given a list of variables, picked out 3 to test (coins, straws, brass clasps, wall putty, tape, 3x5 cards, Paperclips).  Students made their hypothesis about which variable would cause the paper airplane to fly the furthest.  The goal was to try to make their airplane fly further than the control group by adding different variables.

Overall, it has been a great start to the school year.  Our next unit we will start after we get back from our Catalina trip will be Taxonomy :)