Modeling Changes to Earth’s Surface: Where Would You Build? April 11, 2018
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science Center, Student Work.Tags: earth science, erosion, Grade 4, human impact, Pine Glen, video
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Pine Glen fourth graders got an opportunity to play waterfront developer during their stream table investigation this week. After creating what was discovered to be a model stream/river and beach, students were given the opportunity to decide where they would build homes on the landform site.
Some went for big risk, big reward while others took a more conservative approach. In the end many realized that the power of moving water was a force to be reckoned with! Along the way they considered how their small scale model might provide evidence for how larger landforms such as canyons and deltas form on our Earth’s surface.
Investigating the Sun with our First Grade Sky Scientists September 27, 2017
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science, Student Work.Tags: Fox Hill, Grade 1, Memorial, patterns, Pine Glen, sun
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Over the past two weeks, first graders at all of the Burlington elementary schools have been starting their exploration of the patterns we see in our sky by observing their shadows to answer the question: Does the sun move in our sky?
Just about every first grader acknowledges that the alternating day and night we experience is a pattern, but how and why this pattern occurs is often a mystery. To help uncover this mystery, Mr. Musselman has been spending time with each and every first grade classroom outdoors with chalk, clipboards, and some clever use of student feet to observe and measure how student shadows change over the course of the day and how it relates to the sun’s position in the sky.
Students work together (just like scientists!) to trace one another’s shadow.
Then they record the time of day and the length of the shadow by counting how many steps they can take toe-to-toe.
Once the measurements have been taken and the time recorded, students add this information to a chart, collecting their data for the day on the chance a rain shower might come and wash their shadow tracings away!
Later in the day the students record to observe the changes to the length and direction of their shadow. Many students are surprised to see just how far their shadow has moved. They take time in their notebook to describe the new location of their shadow in the sky, sometimes using the cardinal direction they are facing (with the help of Mr. Musselman’s compass app) or by describing an object on the ground that the sun is over.
Students also take time to observe the shadows of their friends and look for patterns there too. Do all of the shadows appear to be pointing in the same direction? Are all the afternoon shadows shorter or longer than the morning shadows? Are these patterns too? Students answer these questions and make predictions about where they think a shadow might be cast later in the day before wrapping up their day 1 investigations with Mr. Musselman.
On day 2 students return to their shadows once more around the same time they visited the previous day. Is the shadow the same or different? What do we think our shadows will be like at this time during the winter? We will have to investigate more then to find out!
Interweaving Pollinator Art into our Life Science Curriculum June 14, 2017
Posted by Sean Musselman in Burlington Community, Student Work.Tags: animals, art, K-5, life science, Memorial, Pine Glen, plants, pollinators
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Beautiful flower artwork on display in the Memorial Elementary hallways.
This year Burlington took a big step toward aligning with the new K-12 Massachusetts Science, Technology, and Engineering Standards by introducing plant and animal structure and function units to the first and fourth grades. The process of pollination, and how the structures of plants and animals work together to help one another survive has been the focus at the fourth grade level, with students examining internal and external parts of the organisms to grasp their function. Along the way, the BPS Art Department was inspired to bring this exploration into their own work, and coordinated closely with Miss Pavlicek to interweave their own art standards and aspirations with the science curriculum.
Two teachers in particular have stood out that we would like to recognize. Art teacher, Donna York at the Memorial School became so inspired by the new curriculum that she dedicated a large portion of her year to the pollinator theme, having students from all grades construct artwork that captures pollinator shape, color, and function. When the work was published this spring through the Memorial hallways the work was absolutely breath-taking!
Art Teacher, Courtney Fallon took students in a different, but equally wonderful direction by piloting a pollinator performance unit to be shared with her fellow elementary art teachers in hopes they might produce something similar in their own schools. Students incorporated costume art, models created on “pollen” to demonstrate new learning, and an interpretive dance that got different pollinators mixing it up to share learning around their given pollinator type.
We are so impressed at the wonderful work these teachers have produced with their students! Special thanks again to Donna York and Courtney Fallon as well as Art Department Team Leader, George Rakevitch for their dedication and vision to make these imaginative projects a reality for their students.
Pine Glen’s Bridge Engineers February 3, 2017
Posted by Sean Musselman in Student Work.Tags: engineering, Grade 2, matter, Pine Glen
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“Twenty One Elephants and Still Standing” by April Jones Prince
Second graders at Pine Glen have been ‘building’ an understanding of how engineers select materials for specific purposes through their new “bridge engineering challenge.” Before being introduced to the challenge teachers read the core book, “Twenty-One Elephants and Still Standing” a picture book documenting how P.T. Barnum seized the attention and awe of New York City by marching  his circus star elephants across the newly constructed Brooklyn Bridge, proving to the masses the bridge was safe and his circus was in fact, “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
Using the pictures in the book and images from other bridges around the world, students discuss what materials bridges are made of and why learning that this “research” will be handy before they get to work building their own model bridges!
The criteria for a successful bridge is simple: The bridge must be 45cm long and hold the load of 5 circus elephants. All groups use the same type and quantity of materials before engaging in the challenge.
Along the way, teachers assess student understanding of the thinking engineers need to do before partaking in construction projects like bridges by asking them to share their thinking about which materials they chose to use and why. Students later evaluate whether or not the bridge meets the expected “engineering solution criteria” (Was it long enough? Did it hold the animals?) before documenting their bridges and learning in their Explain Everything digital notebooks.
The Science Center is excited to see students engaging in this kind of learning being built into each and every new science unit across our K-5 schools and classrooms. Keep an eye on this blog for future updates on what new investigations and challenges our students are embarking on!
Pine Glen Science Night 2016 October 13, 2016
Posted by Sean Musselman in Burlington Community.Tags: Pine Glen
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Edison takes in the Science Night crowd from his perch on Miss P.
Last week, Science Center staff and volunteers welcomed students and their families to Science Night inside the Pine Glen gymnasium. The Science Night proved to be the best yet, with several takeaways including oobleck, straw rockets, and “sound sandwiches” as well as guided tours of the StarLab!
Students also explored the spectrum of invisible, “infrared light” with the help of the Science Center’s infrared camera! Many students danced and played, watching their colorful outlines projected on the gymnasium wall while Mr. Musselman presented heat energy experiments to them through the use of ice cubes and students’ own insulating jackets!
As always Miss Pavlicek and her incredible cadre of Science Center volunteers were sharing fascinating nocturnal animals with those willing to get up close in the live animal exhibit! Mrs. Hogan, pre-service teachers from Cambridge College and former Science Center Director, John Papadonis also facilitated several learning stations.
Pine Glen Science Night was proudly sponsored by the Pine Glen PTO and marks the fifth Science Night hosted by the Burlington Science Center. Miss Pavlicek and Mr. Musselman intend bring Science Night to a new school every year with Memorial up next in the four year rotation! Thanks to Linda McNamee and Principal Lyons for sharing their photos with us.
See you next year, Memorial!
Kindergarteners “Protect the Popsicle” in Engineering Challenge June 14, 2016
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science Center, Student Work.Tags: engineering, Francis Wyman, Grade K, Mr. Musselman, Pine Glen, video, weather
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Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Parnell are wrapped up their year long investigation of weather and temperature with a challenge putting students engineering skills to the test! Our newly developed “Protect the Popsicle” challenge pits students love for these summer treats against the ultimate source of light and heat energy, the sun!
Students in both classes investigated how heat causes many kinds of matter to melt before investigating the many kinds of shade shelters humans already use to stay cool, particularly in the summer sun!
Students then designed and constructed solutions to the challenge of keeping a popsicle frozen in the sun with the help of a shade shelter. Students then considered how to test the shelters, ultimately deciding it would be best to put them out in a sunny spot outside because “we want to be challenged.”
The results were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Teachers poured what had melted after roughly 10 minutes into a graduated cylinder and kept the frozen contents in the plastic sleeve before asking students to consider how they could tell which shade shelters worked the best. Students were able to determine that their shelters worked well because “more freezepop was left in the plastic” than Mr. Musselman’s control popsicle left out in the sun. Then students counted up from their amount of melted popsicle to Mr. Musselman’s with the help of unifix cubes and other counters to determine the difference between the sunny and shaded popsicle!
Thanks to Mrs. Duncan and Mrs. Parnell for working on developing and piloting this new kindergarten engineering challenge! We are excited to share it with all of the Kindergarten teachers next year! Check out Mrs. Duncan’s blog post for even more information and pictures on how the challenge went.
Up in the Clouds with Mrs. Hoyt’s Kindergarteners November 19, 2015
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science Center.Tags: Grade K, Mr. Musselman, Pine Glen, weather
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Kindergarteners offer answers as to why predicting the weather is so important.
On Tuesday Mr. Musselman visited Pine Glen Kindergarteners in Mrs Hoyt’s class to take part in her “Everybody Reads” series! He brought along one of his favorite books as a child, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” by Judy Barrett. Mr. Musselman tied in the imaginative story of wild weather in the land of Chewandswallow with students own “Weather Wednesday” investigations. The class discussed why it was so important for the people of Chewandswallow to predict (make a thoughtful guess in Kindergarten speak!) what the weather would be like and how they would prepare for the weather each day.
AÂ cumulonimbus cloud can bring heavy rains, wind, and even lightning!
As a follow up, Mr. Musselman came in again on Weather Wednesday to share with students how clouds can be used to predict the weather. Students examined different kinds of clouds and shared what kinds of weather they would have to prepare if they saw these clouds outside their window. Mr. Musselman wrapped up the presentation by showing students how to make their own cloud, stopping at each ingredient to give students time to think about where on Earth they would find heat, water, and cold air to construct the much larger clouds in the sky!
Our cloud is so thick we can’t see through it! Warm water, cold air, and a little dust and smoke was all it took!
Our classroom cloud even came with its own rain! It’s “stuck” to the bottom of the cold pie pan but could fall on us at any second… watch out!
Burlington Science Center Exhibit: Patterns in Nature! January 12, 2015
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science Center.Tags: animals, astronomy, communication, earthquakes, exhibits, Fox Hill, Francis Wyman, habitats, K-5, Memorial, patterns, Pine Glen, seasons, video
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In science classes, teachers often focus on specific content areas to drive their science curriculum. Topics such as Light & Sound, Rocks & Minerals, or Animals and their Habitats are particularly popular with students. But there are also science concepts that cut across all science disciplines. This year the Science Center decided to showcase one such concept through their bi-annual touring exhibit: Patterns in Nature.
Younger students are first can find patterns in their everyday lives by observing the natural world around them. As they grow older, students can use patterns to sort and classify objects in their world. They can begin to use patterns to make thoughtful predictions about scientific phenomena. Students even come to use patterns as evidence to support scientific explanations about the world they observe around them.
Our patterns exhibit explores several natural phenomena and the patterns they exhibit. Â This charges students to think critically about what the patterns can tell us about the world around us and what they suggest may be to come in the future! Several stations illustrate patterns we can see clearly (such as stripes that help tigers hide in the grasslands) while others reveal patterns that may not be visible without careful data collection for a year (seasons and constellations) or thousands of years (earthquake locations) at a time!
Check out all the different stations we offer in this exhibit by exploring the pictures below, or come see the exhibit for yourself when it visits your child’s school! The exhibit is currently on display for two weeks at the Memorial School. It will then travel to Pine Glen, Fox Hill, and the Francis Wyman where it will also be on display for two weeks at a time.
As always we love to hear your feedback. Please let us know what you think about our exhibit by email or through the comments section below!
Wood Frog Eggs and Life Cycles! April 16, 2014
Posted by bsciencecenter in Science.Tags: Grade 2, life cycles, Miss Pavlicek, Pine Glen
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Every spring as the temperatures rise and the local water resources thaw, local wildlife starts to emerge and prepare for reproduction.  Amphibians travel to areas of the forect floor that have filled with water from melting snow.  These pools of water are called vernal pools.  Vernal pools provide a great food source and a safe place to lay their eggs.  They are a wonderful habitat for viewing unique wildife. 
Every year Ms. Pavlicek travels to local vernal pools in search of amphibian eggs to share with her elementary classrooms. Â They are used for a variety of science curriculum connections including life cycles, characteristics of living things, adaptations and amphibian units. Â Each interested classroom receives 10 eggs, food and an information packet. Â The classrooms will raise their tadpoles and release them back into the vernal pool shortly after.Â
Wood frog egg masses attahed to plants
Wood frog egg mass
Garden snake in the forest
Be sure to check out the Science Center’s video on this egg collecting excursion here.
Mrs. Anderson’s second grade class working on their observation amphibian journals.
Fifth Graders Become Consumer Scientists April 8, 2014
Posted by Sean Musselman in Science Center, Student Work.Tags: Francis Wyman, Grade 5, investigation, measurement, Mr. Musselman, Pine Glen
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With teen years fast approaching, fifth graders everywhere are on the precipice of becoming the next generation of consumers. With ads inundating students on television, radio, and even inside apps and their favorite games how will they make informed decisions about the purchases they make?
How will we determine which paper towel absorbs the most water?
The paper towel experiment is a good first step. Students are briefed on what “Consumer Reports” is and introduced to the challenge by being told that they are about to try their hands at being consumer scientists, testing how absorbent different brands of paper towels are, including the well known “quicker-picker-upper,” Bounty and the thoroughly detested school paper towels!
Carefully measuring the weight of the dampened paper towels. Look at the concentration on that balance needle!
Fifth graders are broken into small groups, and asked what they already know about the brands as a way to collect information in order to form a thoughtful hypothesis. Groups are then challenged to plan and design a repeatable experiment that can be performed on three different paper towel brands. Few instructions on how to design such an experiment are provided, though students are limited by the tools provided and 50mL of water per paper towel test.
Materials: pan balances, graduated cylinders, funnels, cups, weights, and beakers.
Across Burlington the experiments are rarely identical. As students record their data and determine if their hypotheses are correct, they also share their information on a class wide data table to see how their results compare to those of their classmates, just like collaborating scientists do like those at Consumer Reports.
Student collaborative data table. What does the data tell us about the paper towels’ absorbency?
The goal of this experiment is not to turn students on to a career at Consumer Reports, but to give them an opportunity to practice using a variety of scientific tools including, graduated cylinders, pan balances, and metric weights. Developing their understanding about what makes an experiment “fair” is also an important result of this activity as students begin more and more to explore “variables” in both science and mathematics while the demand for more student-driven experimentation and thinking increases.
While a handout is distributed to all students, some teachers use the handout as a script that students complete and later use to direct their own Explain Everything presentations they can share on their digital portfolios.
Student work on the experiment worksheet
The Burlington Science Center 