The middle school started science this week with a mysterious jar of unknown substances: a couple immiscible liquids; some plastics and metals of different densities.
As they try to separate and identify the mixture they’ll be learning about handling potentially hazardous materials, material physical and chemical properties (like density and pH), and a little chemistry.
But the first thing they need to learn is how to take notes. Science starts (and ends) with observation. Careful observation. And most middle schoolers need mentoring to make sure their notes are rigorous.
To this end, after they wrote up their observations of what was in the jar, I put together my own notes as a general reference. This is not the only way to take notes, but I’m going to have them amend their own notes to make sure they’re neater and have as much detail as possible.
