Second Grade Science Field Trips at School

Occasionally, I have kept my class outside for a lesson after recess to minimize transitions.

One day, for example, the class stood in a line and the education aide stood 100 yards/meters away at the soccer goal posts.  This way the children could see and hear her hit the goal post with a metal object.  Then we moved 100 yards/meters farther away. This time when we saw our aide hit the goal post, we heard the sound a moment later. This experientially reinforced what we had learned about sound in the classroom, and it had quite an impact!

Being outside has many benefits, including learning opportunities for which there is not enough space indoors.

Start the year with short learning times outside, and focus those short times on one topic, like flowers or insects. During the first visit outside, allow students to run the boundary of the area where you want students to stay. This will dissipate initial energy and allow them to learn boundaries. Stress that outside learning time is not recess, and expect that it will take some time for students to learn that.

Understanding Earth and Space Systems: Air and Water
Curriculum expectations are always based on the Ontario Ministry of Expectations. Many of the activities will reinforce, rather than teach, those expectations. As such, no assessment ideas or rubrics are included. Outside, students and teachers have the opportunity to see, experience and enjoy the wonders of the natural world about which they are learning.

Overall Expectations:

• assess ways in which the actions of humans have an impact on the quality of air and water, and ways in which the quality of air and water has an impact on living things;
• investigate the characteristics of air and water and the visible/invisible effects of and changes to air and/or water in the environment; demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which air and water are used by living things to help them meet their basic needs.

Gauging Rain
This unit's objectives tie in with the Matter and Energy unit. Students can go outside to observe puddles over time, investigate properties of water using water guttering, or the need of plants to have enough water. They can make and play with pop bottle wind spinners, kites or pinwheels, and observe the effects of rain and measure rainfall.

Students can go outside to observe where rainwater goes on the school property after a rainfall. They can observe puddles and the ditches, and go for a walk to follow the water from the ditches to a drain. Where does the rainwater go once it goes down the drainage grates? What else goes down the grates? Check out https://www.streamofdreams.org/

Students can make a rain gauge to put outside. Don't put it near the school walls; rather, have it out in the open to catch the true measure of rainfall.

On a sunny day, put an inverted jar on the pavement and one on the grass. Ask students to hypothesize why condensation has happened in the one jar and not in the other.

Understanding Structures and Mechanisms: Movement

Overall Expectations:

•  assess the impact on society and the environment of simple machines and mechanisms;
• investigate mechanisms that include simple machines and enable movement;
• demonstrate an understanding of movement and ways in which simple machines help to move objects.

Simple Machines

Prepare to provide students with a variety of pieces of wood and other building materials: planks, small logs, tree coins, wheels, pulleys and short lengths of rope (short for safety).  Students can investigate movement with inclined planes, wheels and axles and levers outside. They will enjoy constructing and seeing levers as catapults. What happens if you use a longer plank? What happens if you put the fulcrum in different places?

For more ready-made science lessons for outside, with age-appropriate worksheets, click here.

Who Builds Nests?**

Our activity today is inspired by the nonfiction children's picture book A Nest Is Noisy by Dianna Hutts and illustrated by Sylvia Long. 

Of course, when you think of nests, you probably think of birds right away. In fact, a dictionary definitions of the word "nest" might be "a place where a bird lays its eggs and cares for its young." In the book, however, the author quickly points out that insects, frogs, fish, alligators, and even orangutans make nests. A better definition might be that a nest is a structure made by an animal as a place to produce and care for its offspring.

Brainstorm with your children about what kinds of animals make nests (remember that birds are animals in the sense they belong to the animal kingdom). Make a list and then add to it as you read the book or research to discover new kinds of nests. 

Insects like honey bees, wasps, and ants make extensive nests.

Take a walk around and look for evidence of nests. You can even see nests in the city, where birds like house sparrows often nest on buildings or other structures. Remember: Always be respectful of animal nests and do not disturb them. Sometimes animals return to the same nest year after year and even a nest that seems abandoned may be recycled or reused in the future.

If you can't find any local bird nests, take a look at the awesome bird cams at Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Help your local wildlife by buying or building nest boxes. Before you start, however, be sure to research what kind of animals use nest boxes where you live (for example, it turns out that bats don't use bat boxes in the Sonoran desert). Also, find out where the boxes should be placed and if you have a proper location. 

** Lesson from growingwithscience.com