Earth to Harper

 Harper has been learning Earth science this week.  It is such a broad topic, but we covered some basics.  We only touched on pollution and clean energy, but this will certainly be another topic given how important it is!

    

I found this awesome pop-up book with great pictures and facts about the Earth.

   

We started with a project to show Harper where she is in the world.  The smallest page is her house number, then her street, city, state, country, continent and planet.

    

    

   

    

We made a model Earth out of clay to learn about the layers of the planet.

   

      

I figured it was okay for her to use the BIGGEST knife in the house seeing as she has already done a cesarean. 

    

    

We talked about core samples and their use to discover the Earth's layers.

   

   

We obtained our own core samples from this multicolored layer cake.

   

We could see the green, blue and purple layers under the chocolate frosting using our core sample technique.

    

   

   

Harper obtained a soil sample so we could evaluate the layers.

  

We put the soil into a jar with water, shook it up and waited a day to see how the sediment would separate out.

   

   

We learned about different land forms and modeled them with sand.

   

  

Harper liked peninsulas the best.

   

We made a diorama to illustrate different land forms.

     

Harper wrote the names of the landforms and labeled the diorama herself. 

     

   

 

Harper learned about erosion and deposition using water and sand.

     

   

   

      

We made several volcanos.  The first was with baking soda and vinegar.  

  

  

The eruption was not the best.

   

Our next one was made with Mentos and Coke.  The eruption was huge!

   

   

Our last one was with baking soda, dish soap, water and vinegar.  It was just right!

   

  

  

  

Ethan licked it.

       

   

We made jello to learn about earthquakes.

   

We used toothpicks and marshmallows to design different types of structures to see which ones could withstand an earthquake in our jello. 

    

   

    

Fail

   

Fail

   

The hexagon worked!

   

We made a seismograph to record the motion of our earthquakes.

   

   

   

Reading her seismograph! 

   

We spent a little time on pollution.  We made a pretty blue and green Earth from food coloring, milk and dish soap.  The dish soap causes the food coloring to constantly move. 

    

   

Then we added one drop of pink "pollution".

   

It quickly spread across our Earth.

   

And polluted the Earth :(

   

Our last lesson was on the formation of mountains.

   

Harper and Alex applied different forces on either side of our "Earth" and mountains of different heights formed.