Second Grade Unit: EXPLORE

Explore: BIRD FAMILIES GAME; EGG EXPERIMENTS AND EGG MATH

KEY CONCEPTS

• Animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are different for different organisms.
• discuss and research animal life cycles

SUMMARY

After playing a game to explore which farm animals lay eggs, students do simple tests to determine which egg is hardboiled and which is raw, which is fresh and which is old. They conduct a spin test and a floating test. A math connection is made with non-standard circumference measures and ordination of eggs using the wooden eggs included in the kit.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Raw and hardboiled eggs, ideally one egg for each child with half of them hardboiled. Two week old eggs and fresh eggs. Bowls for pairs of students. Pencils, and paper to record predictions, observations and results. Wooden eggs from the kit.

DIRECTIONS

BIRD FAMILIES

1. Each student is given one images (TenSpecies.pdf) or name (AnFamilies.pdf) of turkeys, ducks, chickens and geese. Students set about finding others of their family by making sounds and movements of their species. They gather into four groups of the different domestic species.

2. The teacher hands one person in each group their egg – the size egg lain by their species.

3. Representatives of the four species then get in a line based on largest to smallest egg size.

4. Is this order also the largest to smallest size of the animals? (Turkey, goose, chicken, duck).

SPIN TEST

1. Mark the hardboiled eggs with an ‘x' and the raw eggs with an ‘o'. Do not tell the students about this code.

2. Students are placed in pairs (one ‘x' and one ‘o') to conduct tests.

3 As a class, make a prediction about which will spin faster, the hardboiled or the raw. (Answer: the hard boiled egg spins longer because the loose liquid slows down the raw egg. ) Make a chart of the predictions.

4. Conduct the spin tests and record results. Compare results with others. Did other find the X or the O spun more quickly? Which do you think is the raw egg (X or O), and which is the boiled egg? Record your ideas.

5. Have students shake the eggs and listen. Finally they should guess which is hardboiled, crack into the bowl and see if their prediction was correct.

6. Through observations and a simple test, students discover the difference between what they thought or guesses (their hypothesis) and what they observe. They share their findings with others in the room.

FLOAT TEST

1. Fill a bowl with water.

2. Mark the eggs with an X and an O again. One is for fresh eggs and the other for spoiled eggs.

3. Have students predict which will float and why. Which ones will float? Leading question: Which would have air seepage into the shell (over time)?

4. Decide on systematic methods. Place the old and the fresh eggs in the water.

5. Conduct the test and record the results. Some sink and some float.

6. The X or the O eggs are sinking. Which one's are the older egg?

7. Students can open the eggs and try to determine by the look and smell which is older, X or O.

8. Through observations and a simple test, students discover the difference between what they thought or guesses (their hypothesis) and what they observe. They share their findings with others in the room.

9. Answer: The older egg has more time for air to seep into the air cell inside the egg. This acts like a bubble that keeps the egg afloat. A spoiled egg will smell horribly rotten (do not even open one that is fully spoiled) and sometimes look spoiled, or very runny.

EGG MATH

1. Have students use a piece of string or yarn to wrap around an egg or the wooden eggs. Compare the lengths of the strings on a ruler.

2. Have students place the eggs in order from biggest to smallest (ordination).