Category: Fifth Grade

As part of their recent Hydrology PBL unit, the fifth graders sought to understand how rain is created and then worked to see if they could make it rain using a cloud-in-a-cup experiment. 

In teams of four, students ran tests with warm and cold oceans and skies, modeling different climatic conditions in order to see what combinations produced rain. All fifth graders with warm oceans were able to produce a little cloud, whilst those with cold oceans could not. Looking more closely at the cloud-producing warm ocean models, the class observed that those with cold skies created bigger, better clouds than the ones with warm skies. Students concluded that warm oceans and cold skies cause clouds to form better than any other weather conditions. 

Students then tested to see if they could make the clouds rain. They tapped on the cups, forcing the water molecules in their little cup clouds to collide, merge, and fall, making crystal clear raindrops out of warmed red “ocean” water; showing evaporation, condensation, and precipitation in action. 

After discovering that warm oceans evaporated fastest under cold skies, students saw connections to current events – recent hurricanes in the southeast United States. Florida’s hurricane season has been bad this year because of unusually warm ocean temperatures at the start of fall, when cold fronts blow in from the north (where it’s much colder), and then crossing the coastline at high tide, creating storm surge, were an unfortunate trifecta of “perfect storm” conditions. 

#SaklanPBL

As they progress through the grades, students learn about their community in a gradually widening circle, from their family to local helpers in the community, to their state, and then to their country in 5th grade. Therefore, it is fitting that the 5th-grade class is tasked with keeping the flag of the nation and flying it each day.  

The fifth graders watched a video made by flag expert, Drill Master John Marshall, who trains Army Cadet Color Guards, to learn how to correctly fold and unfold a U.S. flag. Students followed along, and then began lowering and folding the school flag into a triangle.  The next morning, Sept. 11th, they raised the flag to the top of the pole, and then lowered it halfway to honor the heroes and fallen of 9/11.  At the end of the day, they lowered and folded the flag, beginning their year-long responsibility as “Saklan Color Guards.” 

Students also wrote job applications for class jobs they are interested in helping with.  In fifth grade, students rotate jobs every four weeks, so everyone gets to help the classroom wheels turn smoothly each day.  Responsibility and being trusted with a “real” job that genuinely needs to be done allows students to see their value to the community, and gain satisfaction from helping others.

#SaklanCommunity #SaklanLeadership

The fifth graders recently learned about imbalance in the Earth’s cycles. Peta shared her love of camping and kayaking at the Russian River, and how this year, she observed a massive algae bloom at the river. The class then learned that harmful algae blooms have been seen in lakes, ponds, rivers, and estuaries all over the world in recent years.

Thinking about causes, and their learning so far this year, the 5th graders brainstormed possibilities: pollution, global warming, too much carbon dioxide, oxygen, chemicals, overeating, or waste/poop… students’ ideas were great, and reflected engagement, thought, and understanding of the topics they explored within The Martian Project (even the poop idea, which turns out to be true!).

Learning that algae is normally a healthy food for fish and turtles, the students discovered that too much of a good thing isn’t always good; it chokes out oxygen, rots and gives off harmful chemicals. Fifth graders wondered if this trend was catastrophic, or if it could be reversed and how, and wanted to learn about solutions. With the stage set for the learning objective, students learned about engineering solutions from simple “quick fixes” such as treating ponds with chemicals, at a high environmental cost, to longer-term  solutions such as adding clay or plants to reduce runoff. Solutions were modeled through small-group “save the lakes” games, with teams working through solutions until all had saved their lakes by returning balance to their ecosystems. 

The goal? To obtain and combine science ideas through models, in order to help a community plan how to respond to, prevent, and protect the Earth’s resources.

The entry event into the newest fifth grade project was an engaging watch-party featuring Ridley Scott/20th Century FOX studios’ The Martian.  Students’ interest was peaked when Mark Watley (Matt Damon) was left for dead on Mars after his suit was breached in a storm and he awoke to realize he had survived, but perhaps not for long. With a food supply of about 9 months, but four years before a rescue mission arrives, Mark has to put his botany skills to the test if he is to survive.  Munching potato chips, students watched Mark cultivate one dozen potatoes NASA had sent with them for Thanksgiving dinner (which NASA actually does for the ISS Astronauts), and create a water cycle to help his crop grow.  

In this unit, students will call on their prior learning of hydrology and the water cycle, as well as the planets and solar system, as they design and create their own ecosystems that cycle hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, to germinate and grow an edible plant for at least 35 Sols (and they’ll do the math to figure out how many Earth days that is).  Along the way, students will learn about food chains, food webs, producers, consumers, decomposers, photosynthesis, the carbon/oxygen cycle, and a total system collapse, in seven milestone lessons. Math, language arts, scientific illustration and history/social studies are all threaded through the project, alongside games such as the “food chain game” which students enjoyed playing last week.