Ideas from an experienced elementary/middle school teacher on effectively using the lab for instruction.

1. Must be downloaded in order to see the animation effects.
Doing Labs
in
Elementary School
By Moira Whitehouse PhD

2. Why is so important for students to take part
in science labs and hands-on activities?

3. Because that’s
the way they
learn.

4. • Elementary school students are concrete
thinkers. Hands-on activities helps them
make the leap to a more abstract
understanding of a scientific process
and/or concept.
• Students are much more engaged in
the learning process.
• Labs and activities are fun and
develop a positive attitude
towards learning science.
• Labs teach inferential reasoning skills.

5. Important questions to
ask yourself when doing ?
?
labs or activities…
? ?
? ? ?
?
? ?
? ?
? ?
? ?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
? ?
?
? ?
?
?
?

6. 1. Is this a lab or activity I should be
doing?
2. How can I best manage my students?
3. How can I best manage the materials?
4. What kind of signal can I use to get the
students’ attention during the lab or
activity?
5. How should I reinforce the concept(s)
presented in the lab or activity?
6. What do I need to do to make this lab
or activity safe for the students?

7. We’ve all found that “fun” lab or
activity that is just right for the time of
year. Maybe is it was making pipe
cleaner stars at Christmas by dipping the
pipe cleaners in a supersaturated borax
solution. When the water
evaporates, shimmering crystals cling to
the pipe cleaners making a beautiful
star. Sounds perfect—kids would love it.

8. We’ve all found that “fun” lab or
activity that is just right for the time of
year. Maybe is it was making pipe
cleaner stars at Christmas by dipping the
pipe cleaners in a supersaturated borax
solution. When the water
evaporates, shimmering crystals cling to
the pipe cleaners making a beautiful
star. Sounds perfect—kids would love it.

9. 1. In selecting the lab ask yourself:
•What is the point of doing this lab or
activity?
•What concept is the lab or activity
supposed to teach the students?
•And most importantis this lab or
activity tied to developing an
understanding of one of the science
objectives for my grade level?

10. If the answer to the last question is
NO
this lab or activity does NOTbelong
in your science curriculum.
The student expectations (SE’s) for
this grade level should help you
decide. Does the focus of the lab
address a concept that your students
should have mastered.

11. 2. The Second big question is :
•How am I going to manage students
to maximize learning?
http://www.vectorjunky.com/gallery/k/Kids-Next-Door-009.jpg

12. •Tough question, because whenever
possible every student should be
part of the action.
-Only actively engaged students learn.
BUT!

13. “Actively engaged” must be
carefully guided.

14. •What can the teacher do to involve all
students in the lab or activity and still
maintain a somewhat controlled
environment for learning?
•Cooperative grouping of some sort
is the solution.

15. Cooperative grouping:
The best kind cooperative grouping
depends on whether the students are
doing a lab or an activity. http://www.learnnc.org

16. First, cooperative grouping for
labs, should involve rotating
standard job assignments. For this I
suggest: your students into groups of
• Divide
three or four.
• Assign each student a particular job.
• Rotate the jobs either by the day or
week.
•Each job must have specific duties.

17. Four jobs I recommend:
1. Principal Investigator or CEO
2. Time Manager
3. Reporter
4. Materials Gatherer

18. Principal Investigator or CEO:
1. Reads instruction for doing the lab
aloud to the group.
2. Assigns each member at least one
of the tasks needed to complete the
lab procedure.
3. Assigns tasks fairly by moving from
member to member in a circle.

19. The person in charge is not a dictator
And everybody gets a turn at being
the “boss”.

20. Time Manager
1. Watches the clock to make sure
the group is completing the lab on
time.
2. Reminds people to keep on track to
do the task assigned to them.

21. Reporter
1. Reports the findings of the group.

22. Materials Gatherer
1. Picks up the materials needed for the
lab.
2. Takes the materials out of the
lab tray when needed.
Important.
3. Returns the material to the
designated area.
4. Is the only team member allowed to
be away from team table.

23. •Some people suggest that the
Time Keeper position should be
replaced by a position called the
Recorder.
•In my experience in order to
keep all the students involved
everyone needs to be recording
observations and/or data being
collected.

24. •Assigning grades for job performance
during labs could be a somewhat of a
conundrum.
•One solution might be to prepare a
Rubric showing check off squares for
job description performance factors
for each student.
•You would check appropriate blocks
while making your rounds during the
lab.

25. • Permanently post the job titles with a
description of duties in the classroom.
• To introduce students to these
jobs, your first lab should be one
specifically designed to allow students
to practice doing the jobs. I have a
favorite lab for this purpose that we
will talk about later in this slide show.

26. •Next, we will think about assigning
jobs or cooperative groups for
activities (vs. labs). This is less
straightforward.
•For each activity you will have to look
at the requirements and see what
works.
•Don’t be afraid to change your
procedures in midstream.

27. •My general recommendation is to give
as many students as you can an active
role or task.
•Let’s look at an activity where task
assignments could vary depending on
what you want to emphasize.
-Using balls to visualize the relative
size of planets.

30. Have one group of students line up in the correct
order of the planets holding the planet cards.
Give each student in the second group a ball whose
size represents one of the planets.
Students in the second group are to find the planet
card that best matches the ball he or she is carrying.

31. 3. The third important question is:
How should I manage the materials.
• I like to use tubs—one tub per
group which contains all the
materials needed for the lab or
activity.
• Others place all the materials needed for
the lab in the middle each group’s table.
Important—make sure before the day
starts you have laid out all the materials
each group needs for that lab.

32. 4. The fourth question is :
What auditory signal shall I use to tell
the students that I need their attention?
• Hand clapping signals
• A bell
• Students hands over head
•There are other schemes for this
job, select what works for your class.

33. 5. The fifth question is :
What to do if the students don’t master a
concept after the lab or activity?
•Some of the ideas you will be presenting
are difficult for young minds, don’t expect
that your students will always master a
concept after doing a lab or activity.
•Follow up activities will usually be needed
to solidify and reinforce the concepts your
are teaching.

34. •Sponges and paper and pencil exercises
will be needed to transfer concepts to
pictures, and then to words.
•After the ball activity on planet size, a
follow up exercise might have students
redraw each of the planets in a more
correct relative size.

35. • It is important to transfer concepts
to pictures (drawn by the students
where ever possible) and then to words.
•First, because students need to be able
to tie what they saw or did in a lab to
some connection in their heads.
•Second, their understanding of
these concepts must be demonstrated
on tests using pictures and words.

36. 6. The sixth question is :
What do I need to do to make this
lab or activity safe for the students?
• materials
• movement and behavior of students

37. Before the lab starts and before the
students have access to the materials:
1. Discuss purpose of lab.
2. Model important parts of the
procedure.
3. Have the Principal Investigator read
aloud to the members of his group Lab
Sheet outlining the procedures to be
followed.
4. Have the Principal Investigator assign
tasks in the procedure to the
members of the group.

38. To teach students about team member
jobs, I use this “magic formula lab” as
the first lab done by each class. It is a
lab where students try to mix colored
water to match a color made by the
teacher. They must keep data of their
attempts (number of drops of each
color), and when they do get it right, the
teacher dumps their product and asks
the team to reproduce that color using
their data.

39. (This lab sheet would be provided for each group or team).
Purpose: To learn lab jobs for team members.
Materials: test tube rack, 6 test tubes: one with
the “mystery solution” provided by the
teacher, one with a solution of red food
coloring, one with a solution of blue food
coloring, one with a solution of green food
coloring, one with a solution of yellow food
coloring and one empty test tube, one 100mL
beaker of water, a container to dump out mixture
made on each trial, one eye dropper, goggles.

40. Procedure:
1. As a group, closely observe the mystery
solution.
2. As a group, decide how many drops of each
color you think it will be needed to create the
mystery mixture.
3. Each member should record under Trial 1, on
the data chart, the number of drops of each
color that the group predicted it would take to
create the mystery solution.
4. Pick up your empty test tube and put the
decided number of drops of each color in that
test tube.

41. 5. Swirl the test tube gently to mix the drops.
6. As a group, observe the mixture you have
created, hold it up beside the mystery
solution and compare colors.
7. The members of the group should discuss
how the solution made on that trial does or
does not match the color of the mystery
solution, example, just right, too red, too
light, too purple. Record that conclusion on
your data table.

42. 8. As a group, decide how many drops of
each of the colored solutions, you should
use for Trial 2. Record that information in
your data chart.
9. Pour out the mixture your group made on
Trial 1 into the waste container.
10.Repeat steps 4-7 for Trial 2.
11.Then repeat all steps for Trial 3, Trial 4, etc.
until you match the magic formula or your
teacher tells you time is up.
12.At the end of the lab, the Reporter in your
group will have an opportunity to tell the
whole group what you discovered.

43. Data Chart for predicted number of drops
Numbe Number Number Number Our solution on this trial
r of red of blue of green of yellow was: (too dark, too light,
drops drops drops drops just right)
Trial 1
Trial 2
Trial 3
Trial 4
Trial 5

44. After that lab both teacher and students
will have a better feel for doing labs.
And it may be time for a little philosophy .
• Don’t give up!
• Some groups are more difficult
than others.
•Have a backup lesson (perhaps a
reading assignment) ready so that you
can abandon or make changes to the
lab or activity if you must.

45. •After you have selected the right lab
or activity to support one of your
learning objectives, be aware that
the students aren’t necessarily ready
to do it.
•This is the time for some heavy duty
thinking about the lab and about
your students.

46. •Let’s walk through an example of
how to analyze a lab or an activity to
ensure that when students do the lab
they will develop an understanding of
the concept(s) being taught.
•Learning without a solid
foundation, like a house built on
sand, will eventually collapse.

47. Your students need to be taught all of
their learning objectives, but let’s say
for this time block you decide to focus
on the following requirement:
“The student will be able to identify
changes that can occur in the physical
properties of ingredients such as
dissolving sugar in water.”

48. You select a lab that touches on these
ideas:
•The lab: Have the students
investigate which substances dissolve
in water and which ones do not and
observe which physical properties of
these substances are maintained and
which change.

49. Now that you have selected the right lab
to support the learning objective(s), ask
yourself: What specific background
knowledge do the students need for this
lab?

50. Knowing your students, you decide that
there are concepts (shown in red) that
may not be understood by everyone.
•The lab: Have the students
investigate which substances dissolve
in water and which ones do not and
observe which physical properties of
these substances are maintained and
which change.

51. So, before charging into this lab, ask
yourself “what concepts do I need to
review (or teach) to make sure
students are ready for this lab?”
•Let’s take our red letter words for
openers: “substances”
•In our world we have objects and
we have substances.

52. •objects are made of substances.
objects
erasers are made of rubber
erasers rubber
foil is made of aluminum
credit cards are made of plastic
•substances have physical properties.

53. •physical properties are characteristics
of a substance that can be observed
with our five senses and measured or
even changed (bent, cut, etc.) without
changing the substance itself.

54. •Let’s take the substance sugar for
example?
•Here the substance
sugar is formed into
five objects the shape
of cubes.
-White
•It has all of sugar’s -dissolves in water
physical properties -tastes sweet
including these:

55. And here, we have sugar in granular
form.
-White
-dissolves in water
-tastes sweet
•It still has all of sugar’s
physical properties which
include these:

56. •As can be seen here, shape and size
are not physical properties of
substances.

57. And here, we could have sugar in water
or we could have just water.
What physical
property of sugar
could we use to
find out?
Color?
Dissolves in water?
Taste?

58. •Our next red letter word was
dissolving, what does that mean?
•Dissolving means that molecules of
one substance (a solute) mix evenly
with the molecules of a liquid
substance (solvent) such as water.

59. •Here we see that sugar, salt and sand
have each been stirred into water.
The molecules of sugar and salt mixed
evenly but the sand did not.
Dissolved Dissolved Not dissolved

60. •Uh-oh, another word pops up that will
be needed to understand the
lab, molecule, better deal with that one
too.
•A molecule is the smallest piece of a
compound.
•The substances we talk about
(sugar, salt) are compounds, so roughly
speaking molecules are the smallest
pieces of our substances.

61. •Molecules are way too small to be
seen. But if they were as big as BB’s,
molecules in the three states of matter
might appear something like this.
Solid Liquid Gas

62. •If one could cut a sugar cube in half,
then cut the half in half, and kept on
doing that until arriving at the smallest
piece that has the properties of sugar,
that would be a molecule.
•Of course, one could not keep cutting
a sugar cube that far, the last few
thousand cuts would be of something
much too small to see.

63. •But if we could, we would reach
the point where one more cut
and it would no longer be a
molecule of sugar, but the atoms
that, put together in a special
way, make up sugar molecules.

64. •When we stir a spoon of sugar into a
beaker of water, the molecules of sugar
(let’s pretend that they are purple) mix
evenly with the molecules of water
(let’s color them blue).
•When dissolved, the sugar
molecules are not visible and
the solution is clear.
• Sugar dissolves in water.

65. •When we stir a spoon of sand into a
beaker of water, the grains of sand (let’s
pretend that they are red) do not mix
evenly with the molecules of water (still
blue), instead they fall to the bottom.
•When settled, the grains
of sand are still visible in the
bottom of the beaker.
• Sand does not dissolve in
water.

66. • Now, with some understanding of the
vocabulary needed for our experiment
we are ready to teach our learning
objective:
• “What are some changes that can
occur in the physical properties of
ingredients such as dissolving sugar in
water?”

67. • We know that substances have
physical properties, and that some of
these properties can change when the
substance is dissolved.
• Students can see that sugar is
white before it is placed in the
water. Then it disappears.
• But how will they know that
the sugar is still there?

68. • Of course we are going to let them
taste it. I use a pipette to put a tiny
squirt into the mouths of any student
who wants to see for sure.
• For a more lasting bit of proof, we can
let the water evaporate leaving the
sugar residue behind.

69. • For an ongoing demonstration for the
next week, heat the water and dump in all
the sugar you an get to dissolve.
• Point out that after a certain amount,
no more sugar will dissolve. The rest falls
to the bottom.
• You might mention at that point the suga
water solution is holding all the
sugar that it can, and use the word
saturated.

70. •Then suspend a string into the water
and in about a week the sugar will
reform on the string.

72. •By then, students really begin to get
the idea that:
•substances have physical properties.
•some substances dissolve in water.
•substances that dissolve lose some
of their physical properties

73. •Now, the students are ready to do
the lab which could be something like
this:
•Prepare an instruction sheet with
steps students are to follow.
•Provide each team with six small
beakers of water and small containers
of six substances to test; salt, sand,
sugar, cornstarch, Epsom salts and small
pieces of styrofoam.

74. •On a data chart, list in two columns,
substances that do and substances that
do not dissolve in water. Show
properties lost or kept for those that
did dissolve.

75. •After team reports, the teacher
should summarize with a statement of
what students should have learned:
•Solutions are mixtures in which the
dissolved substance (like salt or sugar)
loses most of its physical properties—
it seems to disappear but really it
breaks down into molecules and
those molecules mix evenly with the
water molecules.

76. Some general thoughts on doing
labs with elementary students:
•For some lessons, a teacher demonstration
may be more productive than a lab.
•When doing labs or activities, watch the
clock, pacing is very important.
•You must know your Learning
Objectives, but it is also important to know
those of the following grade level to be sure
you are providing the foundation for those
overall concepts.

77. •When selecting and when doing your
labs, look for concepts previously taught
that can be reviewed or reinforced in the
lab or activity students are presently doing.
Following are some examples:

78. •When you teach “describe the life cycle
of plants”
-Review “parts of plants and their
functions”

79. •When you teach “Identify the
significance of the water, carbon, and
nitrogen cycle”.
a. –Review “changes in states of matter
caused by addition or reduction of heat”
b. –Review “identify the Sun as the
major source of energy for the Earth
and understand its role in the growth
of plants, in the creation of winds, and
in the water cycle”

80. •When you “test the properties of
soil, including texture, capacity to retain
water, and ability to support life.”
-Review all Learning Objectives of
your grade level to do with the
scientific method.

81. •To review, even though our lab and
activity selections will be based on
several things, student readiness,
classroom management, etc. they
must be specifically focused on
teaching Learning Objectives of your
grade level.
•Your success will be very much affected
by how familiar you are with these
objectives and how well your teaching
focuses on them.

82. •Even with the right focus, good
organization and appropriate
activities, student learning will
ultimately depend on the students
on the students being thoroughly
being thoroughly engaged.
engaged.

83. Remember doing a lab or an activity may
bring you agony or ecstasy

84. Remember doing a lab or an activity may
bring you agony or ecstasy......
because activities and labs are sometimes
ORGANIZED CHAOS
but real learning almost
always takes place.