What is a scientist?

I am a big believer in science. It is a holistic way to teach literacy, math, and critical thinking while giving students hands on experiences with the world around them. So every Friday we always have a big science lesson.  We have special science notebooks, a science safety contract, and spiffy "super scientist" badges that we wear while doing our experiments.

On Friday we had our usual science lesson, but I was so excited about this one that I made it a priority to take pictures and video. It didn't turn out EXACTLY as anticipated but the kids got the idea of what a scientist is. We talked about how many different kinds of scientists there are out there, and how they study the world around them. We also talked about how good scientists make predictions and record their observations. Of course as the year goes on we will continue to learn what other things scientists do. But for today, we started out with one cup of milk in a deep dish plate, then 3 drops of red, blue, green, and yellow food coloring grouped tightly in the middle of the milk. We then dipped a Q-tip in dish soap and put it in the middle of the colors.  I think the biggest reason ours didn't star out the way the video below did, is that some of the kids tried to stir, but you need to hold the Q-tip still in order for it to repel the colors.

Here's a video of what should have happened. :)

 http://youtu.be/I5Wl-V5zOGs

I found another video that shows you EXACTLY what to do if you wanted to try it at home.

http://youtu.be/22r1zWOYiRM

Here are a few of us writing and drawing our predictions and observations in our Super Scientist Notebooks with the help of our blue shirted friends (Lations in Action from the middle school).