The Nature of Science

Over the last two weeks, we have been learning what is takes to be a Second Grade Scientist. We have experimented with our five senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste) to discover and make observations about simple things in our world. We conducted a lab where we thought deeply what we could learn by making observations about a banana. This lab was followed up by learning about the difference between an observation and an inference. Ask your little scientist to explain the difference!

Toward the end of last week, we began our new unit of study in which we will be learning about the Earth's structure... soil and rocks to be more exact. We started our investigations by wondering the question, "What is soil made of?" Our first inquiry had us combing through a pile of dirt from Miss Thomson's yard.

We were able to see many different things hiding in it, such as rocks, little bugs, mulch, leaves, little plants, and even a seashell! The next day we compared four different samples of soil including topsoil (dirt from Miss Thomson's yard), potting soil, sandy soil, and clay.

Check out some pictures below, showcasing our scientist skills:

making observations

using hand lens to zoom in

sampling the samples

using our sense of touch

recording observations in our Science Notebook

recording comparisons in our Science Notebook