Experiments and Hypotheses

How We Got to Experiments

About a month ago, the Catbirds read the biography of Sally Ride, the astronaut. Since then, we have been interested in space. We have done some research about what astronauts do, how they eat and sleep (and use the bathroom), and what kind of work they do - particularly on the International Space Station. This is when we discovered that they do many many experiments and we decided to do some experiments of our own. First, we worked on defining the word experiment.

The Catbirds decided that:
1. You do an experiment when you are wondering about something, or you want to figure something out.
2. Experiments can help you learn how to do something - you can try different ways.

We also learned the word hypothesis, which we defined as making a guess about what you think might happen as a result of an experiment.

This week, we gave the Catbirds a mystery ingredient and asked them to feel it and smell it. Then, we asked them to guess what they thought might happen to it if they added water. These were their hypotheses:

"It might turn into paint." Jona
"It might turn into lava." Max
"I think it will turn into white stuff." Anthony
"It might float around." Ernest
"I think it will turn into water beads." Vivien
"I think it's going to get bigger and bigger and huge." Rowan
"I think it's going to get bigger." Lily
"It's going to explode!" Matthew C
"I think it's going to turn into jelly beans." Matthew H
"It will go into the water then go away." Nora
"It will be small." Xavy
"I think it will explode." Lillian
"I think it will explode." Jessica
"It will still be white." Benji

Next, each Catbird added the water and carefully watched what happened.

These were some of their experimental observations:

"It's turning into milk!" 

"It's getting bigger!" 

"It feels cold."

"It feels like snow."

"It feels wet."

"It's fluffy!"

"It changed into snow!"

"It's like what we saw on my mom's phone!"

"It's like white moon cheese!"

"Why doesn't it melt?"

"It doesn't melt because they are different things."

"It feels like fluffy water."

"It feels really good when you squish it."