Yesterday, we kicked off our next science unit, which is all about the chemistry of ODORS!

To get the 6th grade scientists immediately thinking when they walked into the classroom Wednesday morning at 8 AM, I had hid McDonald’s hashbrowns in hopes that the scientists would notice that the room had a different odor than usual. Some of the scientists remarked, “it smells weird” when they walked in, and some didn’t really notice. Luckily, I had come prepared in case the odor wasn’t strong enough. I had the scientists close their eyes and began spraying a substance near each of the corners in the classroom.  Almost immediately, I began hearing things like, “that smells awful”, “oh I can for sure smell that”, “ewwwwww” (it was a bleach cleaning spray).

This lead to our first ever “Science Talk” to get our scientists thinking about odors more.

A science talk is when the scientists sit in a circle and discuss their thoughts on a scientific phenomena. We use a talking piece so only the individual who is holding the piece is allowed to speak. Once they are done, they pass it to the next individual who has something to say. The kids do pretty much all of the talking and driving of the conversation, which is a pretty incredible thing to witness!

During this science talk, we discussed our thoughts and ideas on how and why we can smell odors and why certain odors smell stronger than others.

Already, the scientists had so many amazing thoughts! After our science talk was over, they went back to their seats to model (another HUGE focus of our unit) their initial thoughts on how we can smell odors. I was so impressed with their initial models and cannot wait to continue this thinking, investigating, and figuring out!

Stay tuned,

Gev. McAdams