January 12, 2019 Blog, Outdoor Classroom No Comments

 

Your students may have an idea about how much they weigh, but have they ever weighed objects they find outside? For the activity this week, you will need: 

  1. Bags for collecting the objects
  2. A bathroom scale 
  3. A kitchen scale 

First, head outside with your students to collect 3 different natural objects. Instruct them to collect objects of different shapes and size .

Next, have the students place their object on a table or other surface in front of the class. Have the students arrange the objects on the table by weight. Begin with the object they think is the lightest to the object they think is the heaviest. Students can make these decisions together as a class as you move the objects around on the table, or the students can come up one at a time, choose an object, and then place it where they think it should go in the lineup. 

Once all of the objects have been arranged, choose a student to weigh the first object. Instruct the student to

  1. choose the appropriate scale
  2. weigh the object
  3. read the scale
  4. write the name of the object and its weight on the board.

Have the next student repeat this process with the second object in the lineup. Continue with each student in the class until every object has been weighed. Depending on your number of students, some may need to weigh more than one object. 

When all the objects have been weighed, look at the list. Ask the students if  the weights increase as they go down the list, or are some out of place? Are the results what they expected? Is there anything in the results that surprised them? 

 

Photo by RoganJosh

Written by Outdoorosity