Do you have your plans worked out for the first days of the courses you will teach beginning this month or in September?  Here are three ideas you might consider, especially if you want to begin the year engaging your students in a science inquiry activity.

I introduced these projects in the last post as Web 2.0 technology projects.  You can do these projects with your students either with or without using the Internet.  However, there are websites for each project, and you are free to use the Website, activities, and forms you will find at each site.

Three science inquiry projects are described here that engage your students in hands on activities, and would be great to use at the beginning of the year.  It would give you an opportunity to observe your students doing inquiry, and also help them learn to work together in small collaborative teams.

Project Green Classroom

The Project Green Classroom Web site. Use the site to organize your students as they investigate the environmental quality of your classroom.

How green is your classroom?  Your school? How would rate the environmental quality in your classroom?

In this project your class is divided into six teams, each responsible for investigating one aspect of your science classroom—yes the actual physical space of your classroom.

As you can see from the screen shot of Project Green Classroom website, there are links for each team (Weather, Air quality, etc), and links for your students share their data, and access data from other classrooms.

The materials you need are listed on the website under each of the tabs (weather, air quality, dimensions, population, microorganisms, trash).

Project Ozone

Project Ozone web site.

Advanced Planning: To do this project, it is advised that you order in advance Eco-Badge Kit that your students will use to measure the ground-level ozone in the air either around their school, or at their home.

In this project, you students will not only learn about ozone (stratospheric and ground-level), but will also monitor ground level ozone using the Eco-Badge system.  The Eco-Badge is a chemically treated piece paper.  Using a colormetric chart (included with the Eco-Badge Kit), students can compare the color change on the paper strips with the chart to determine the ozone level in part per billion.

Late summer is a good time to do this project because of the high temperatures in Northern Hemisphere schools.  Southern Hemisphere schools can participate and provide interesting comparative data.

Project River Watch

Project River Watch Website

Advanced Planning:  Dissolved oxygen kits from Chemetrics are recommended to be used in this project to measure the dissolved oxygen level in the water. Other materials you will need include: pH paper, meter stick, stop watch, thermometer, rubber boots, gloves, safety goggles, collection devices (jars, pails), pencil, paper, crayons, smart phone (for digital images and movies).

In this project, your students will monitor various attributes of a local stream, or river, or another body of water.

As with the first two projects, all of the data forms that you will need are available at the project wesite.

Special note:  Some teachers have brought the stream into the classroom by making a video tape of the stream and area of data collection.  By bringing in samples of water, and soil, students can complete most of the activities in class.