Activity 1E: Take a Close Look

Overview

Show students the jar of water that they looked at in Activity 1B: What’s in the Jars? Ask students what they notice about the water in the jar. Students will make an entry in their science notebooks, carefully drawing what they see.

 

Activity Type
Hands-On

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Class Time
60 minutes

Focus Question

  • What do we see when we look closely at water?

Enduring Understandings

  • Living and nonliving things in Alaska waters come in a great assortment of colors, shapes, and sizes.

  • Living things move, grow, and change.

Engage

10 minutes

Show students the jar of water that they looked at in Activity 1B: What’s in the Jars? (The water will now be at least 5 days old, and if it has been collected from a tide pool, river, or puddle and left in the sun it will probably have a phytoplankton bloom and a green color.) Ask students what they notice about the water in the jar, and encourage them to share some observations with the whole class.

Prepare students to make an entry in their science notebooks. Tell students they will be working like scientists when they look closely and notice, and that scientists also record their observations. When scientists make observation they record the date and describe what they are looking at. Then they carefully draw what they see.

Explore

20 minutes

Place a jar of water at each table or work space.

Ask students to look closely at the jar of water at their table. Pose the following questions: “What do you notice about the water in jar? What colors do you see? Do you notice anything moving? Does the water look the same today as it did last week?” Provide magnifying glasses for each table. Encourage the students to use them.

Have each student draw a picture of what they observe in their science notebook.

 

Explain

10 minutes

Invite students to Pair-Share their science notebook observations.

Ask for volunteers to share with the whole class.

Elaborate

10-20 minutes

Tell the students where the water in the jar was collected. If time allows, you may have students closely observe a jar of plain tap water that has also been sitting for 5 days, and make comparisons. Ask “Does water from the faucet have living things in it?” “What water is safe to drink?” Discuss the idea that water in our neighborhood has many living things in it that you don’t always see. As homework, students may bring back some evidence (small container, sketch, or photo) of water near their home that had something living in or near it.

Evaluate

Use class discussion and students’ science notebooks to evaluate their understanding.

Curricular Connections

Math. The Globe Toss activity helps students practice counting skills and introduces basic concepts of probability and statistics. Allow students to revisit this activity during center or choice time, and encourage students to collect additional data: are their hands touching mostly land or water? They can compare it with the class data chart.

Language Arts. Students develop speaking and listening skills, and begin to practice writing as they use labels with drawings.

Art. Students draw from their observations.

Additional connections to music and poetry can be made by bringing in a picture of the planet Earth from space, and song “Blue White Planet” by Raffi.

Teacher Needs

Teacher Prep

Read the Teacher Background for more information. Prior to Activity 1B, collect water from a local outdoor water source (ocean, river, or pond). Collect enough to fill 5 jars. (If you plan to do this as a science center activity instead of as a whole class activity, you may need only one jar of water). After completing the What’s in the Jars (1B) activity, place the jars of water in a sunny spot, and save them to use with the Take a Closer Look activity (1E).

For each table group, fill one jar with the water you collected and one jar with soil or rocks representing land.

Prior to Activity 1C, walk possible routes and decide where to take the students to find water in the neighborhood. Arrange for additional adult support as needed.

Science notebooks: Set up a page or two facing pages in the children’s science notebooks for Land and Water comparisons (1B), with spaces for a date, a title, and a drawing of each. Set up a page for making a map and drawing of neighborhood water (1D). Set up a page for recording observations of living things in the water (1E).

Materials List

  • Inflatable globe
  • Chart paper and markers
  • 2-10 glass jars with lids
  • Water from a local outdoor source such as a tidepool or pond.
  • Soil, dirt, and/or rocks
  • Science notebooks
  • Pencils
  • Book: Water by Frank Asch
  • Clipboard
  • Camera
  • Magnifying glasses

Student Needs

Prior Knowledge

Children will have used their senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing to explore the properties of water.

It is helpful if students have had prior experiences in their science notebooks. If not, students will need an introduction to science notebooks.

Students need to be able to listen to other children as well as to speak and participate in a large group.

Experience using a magnifying lens. They tend to put the lens next to their eye and lean close to the object being observed.

Vocabulary

Adult, data, detective, diatom, direction, environment, globe, larva, magnify, map, observation, ocean, phytoplankton, plankton, planet, tally, zooplankton

Words for local water, such as: creek, harbor, lagoon, pond, river, sea, slough

Related Lessons

Invertebrates, Oceans/Coast

Standards

Science GLEs Addressed

  • K-12 Standards A1, A2, B1, C3, G3

Ocean Literacy Principles

 

  • The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems.