Students explore trees in and around the classroom and school site. Using real and representational materials, students adopt schoolyard trees, observe tree parts, investigate leaves, and keep scrapbooks through the seasons. They investigate wood in water and discover how to sink samples of wood. They take wood apart and explore the resulting sawdust and wood shavings. They also put wood together with nails and glue to create wood sculptures.
Students investigate the properties of fabrics.
Then they investigate fabric interactions by getting cloth dirty and cleaning it, dying it, and finally making something useful or esthetically pleasing from it. Students examine paper by observing the properties of paper, making paper constructions, exploring how it interacts with water, and finally making paper of their own. In each activity, they describe the structures and behaviors of the organisms and then make comparisons. They explore properties of air using plastic syringes and tubes to find that air takes up space and builds pressure when compressed. Students construct devices that use air to function - parachutes, propellers, balloonrockets, gliders, pinwheels, streamers, wind socks, kites, and whirligigs.