Thread: If you were to teach a science lesson

I'm going on a humanitarian trip to Kenya this summer. I'm going with a big group. I have been put on the education committee and am in charge of teaching a 45 minute lesson on science to a class of fourth graders.

I need something simple and fun. Very simple, as they won't speak english and there will be a translator. A cool experiment would definitely be good; we want to make this as cool as possible, obviously, but they still need to get something out of it. (ex. I'm not sure how much they'd get out of a coke-and-mentos explosion, however cool it may be) Suggestions, please?

I was just googling, can't find a thing that would be good =/
i'll check back, I'm going to ask my sister tomorrow(she's in 4th grade)

I think this is pretty fun.

Don't know what to connect it with... perhaps helium and sulfur hexafluoride comparison or something. I don't really know what you have to present or from what area, having no experience about such stuff. But there you go.

haha that's awesome bonsay! I'm not exactly sure how I'd pull that off though...

A group from my school is going to Kenya, within the next month I believe. Interesting coincidence.


EDIT: Just checked the date, May 22nd until June 8th.

The old bicarb-soda-volcano-lava experiment is usually a winner with kids. Depending on how good your translator is, segue into plate tectonics, how the continents move at 1cm/year. From there you can talk about how the planet used to look a few hundred millions of years ago. From there you can talk about dinosaurs. Easy step from dinosaurs in either one of two directions: space (from the meteor impact) or evolution (dumbed down for 9-10 year olds) might be a good one considering the ancestors of all humankind came from Africa, and Kenya has some of the oldest hominid fossils in the world. I'm sure even kids in Kenya would know we walked on the moon in '69. Everyone loves space

http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/le...coursesci4.htm