Harcourt Teacher Leadership Center

Classroom Preparations for Aerial View of Land and Water Exploration

At least two months before the museum visit, the students will benefit from doing their own land and water explorations and aerial view drawing of these explorations. Third graders in the School District of Philadelphia study land and water in September. The School District suggests using the Carolina-created Science and Technology for Children (STC) Land and Water kit. The students and I have enjoyed learning about land and water with this kit very much.

The kit contains almost everything the students need to construct their own stream tables and perform multiple experiments with the stream tables. Groups of four students use a rubbermaid storage container to create the stream tables. At my school, we have one kit for four classes. We've found that two classes can share the kit without two much difficulty, if we alternate days. (Both classes can't use the stream tables on the same day because the "land" gets too wet. We've found the "land" needs to dry out over night for the experiment to be effective.)

Our plan is for the other two classes to use the kit when we are finished our explorations. Even though we can't follow the School District's Science Curriculum Schedule, this plan allows for all the children to have the experience of experimenting with stream tables.

The kits cost $675.95 and can be purchased from Carolina Science Company www.carolina.com, 800-334-5551. The company will send a complimentary teacher's guide to help teachers decide if they want to allocate the money for the kit.

Using the Land and Water kit, the students discover what water does to land when they use small, large, and multiple stream sources. After each investigation the students stretch plastic sheets over their stream tables. Using dry erase markers, the students draw and color what the see through the plastic. This is a wonderful way for the students to record their results and conceptualize aerial view. After each investigation the students record their observations and learn vocabulary words to describe what they see.

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Generous founding support for the Harcourt Teacher Leadership Center and the Harcourt Learning Labs was provided by the Harcourt General Charitable Foundation on behalf of Harcourt, Inc.