Arlington Middle School has a great hands-on science program on Saturdays to help students understand important concepts they need to pass upcoming tests. Here is one simple, but very creative activity:
With a pair of chopsticks, Lawrence Andrews was desperately trying to pick up black and white dots punched from a newspaper.
But wait, to provide the perfect camouflage, they were lying on top of a newspaper. The teenager had 30 seconds to deftly “catch” as many dots as possible and put them in a plastic cup.
…
Teacher Mikki Douglas had students pretend that chopsticks were predators and that the dots were prey camouflaged in their environment. For example, she said, think of a lion chasing a zebra camouflaged by shrubbery or a shark trying to attack a fish. Even so, students said, it wasn’t easy to capture the dots with chopsticks.
The purpose is to show how animals act in their environment, the predator-prey relationship, the animal food chain and the effectiveness of camouflage, Douglas said.
Lawrence, who got 15 prey animals … er, dots … in 30 seconds, said he enjoyed it because it was a different kind of assignment.
This is a great idea! I’m going to try this with my own kids.