Exploring Kites

We have been continuing to explore kites. This exploration has led to investigations about air and wind.

We decided to plan some possibilities for our inquiry. We find it helpful to use what we've heard the students talk about and our own ideas to initially plan and organize the inquiry

An incredible 'inquiry' book, set up to encourage children to discover concepts on their own

During outdoor learning, the students noticed the clouds were not moving and decided that meant there was no wind outside. They drew the clouds that were "sleeping". 

We talked about what we thought wind was made of. Students decided that wind was made of air. Since we can't see air, we decided to try and catch air. Students used plastic bags to capture the air.

N.M- I wonder why when you squish one side it moves?

A.C- when you opened it the air left

A.R- when you shake it again the air comes out 

E.K- the air, you squeeze it all the air will go out and there will be nothing inside it

B.G- if you’re going to touch it very hard, it’s going to pop

D.S- I wonder why when you put it in the air in the bag and you squish it it will make a big hole and the air fly out

I.S- you squish it and then the air was gone

A.H-  when you squished it all the air came out 

R.H- I felt air on my face

M.W. created a wind factory.

We had many discussions about the wind and air. We talked about how the wind can move things. So we created an experiment to determine what object the wind moves the most. The students brainstormed a list of objects the wind moves. They then chose 6 items for our experiment. The students predicted what object they thought would move the most.

We then tied each object in the trees outside and watched!

After we spent a few days observing our objects and analyzing video we took, we recorded our results and some of our observations.

We saw that the leaf moved the most. We are beginning to investigate why.

Another question we thought about was does air weigh anything? The book 'I Face The Wind' had an experiment in it that we re-created. We recorded our experiment just like scientists would.

We saw (see below) that the balloon with air in it weighed slightly more than the balloon with no air in it. When both balloons were empty the hanger was balanced. Since the hanger was only slightly tilted, the students decided that air only weighs a little amount.