Melton demonstrated a surprising disappearance using total internal reflection. When he put a Florence flask filled with marbles into a water tank and looked straight down from directly above the flask, he was only able to see marbles above a certain water level. When he added more water into the tank above the top line of the marbles, all of the…

Marble tracks are a very popular toy and big ones can be found in science centres in many countries. If children want to make a marble track themselves it is quite a job. It takes a long time, they can take up a lot of space and most structures are quite fragile, as the materials used can very quickly prove unfit for the task and do not last very…

Engineering is such a common part of children's work in early childhood programs that teachers can simply look around the room to identify examples where students have engaged in engineering practices. This article presents a classroom activity that integrates engineering design by building on the everyday problems that young children encounter in…

Marbles were successfully used to help primary students develop concepts of motion. Marble-unit activities began with shaking and rattling inference bags and predicting by listening just how many marbles were in each bag. Students made qualitative and quantitative observations of the marbles, manipulated marbles with a partner, and observed…

Discusses the use of collaborative writing for children who are resistant to schooling--who are delayed developmentally for social, psychological, or biological reasons. Provides examples of collective writing centered around a novel created by a junior high school remedial class. (SKC)

Fusing Jimmy Santiago Baca's talents as a writer of memoir with ReLeah Cossett Lent's expertise in building and empowering classroom communities, this book offers a completely new approach to reaching at-risk adolescents. Centered around conflicts and life-altering choices, Baca's gripping personal narratives--delivered through short stories and…

Discusses the surprising result that the expected number of marbles of one color drawn from a set of marbles of two colors after two draws without replacement is the same as the expected number of that color marble after two draws with replacement. Presents mathematical models to help explain this phenomenon. (MDH)

Describes an activity designed to teach students geology vocabulary while challenging them to solve the case of the missing marble. Can be adapted to teach vocabulary for different topics. (JRH)

Examines methods and types of estimation. Characterizes fruitful in-class estimation tasks by exploring the validity and possible extensions of "marble jar" estimation. (KHR)

Provides ideas for helping students find sources and discover a topic for a research paper and discusses students' research processes, focusing on the need to allow students time to make meanings out of the facts they gather. (SRT)

In an effort to intrigue her fifth graders with a novel and spontaneous approach to line and movement, Nancy Walkup introduced paper marbling as a means to create remarkable decorative surface designs. To marble paper, some kind of pigment, usually oil or acrylic paint, is floated upon the surface of a liquid such as water or liquid starch. In the…

Presents responses to the Marbles problem, which explores the many ways to arrange a given number of square tiles. (Author/YDS)

This teachers guide contains activities and materials created to teach astronomy concepts to children from grades K-8. It is organized into four units: (1) Earth and Stars; (2) Spheres and Orbits; (3) Stars and Gravity; and (4) Scales and Measurement. Activities are arranged within each unit around six content topics: (1) Earth; (2) Solar System;…

Describes an experiment where elementary students determine the optimum angle of inclination for the greatest amount of distance a marble will roll when accelerated down an inclined plane. (PR)

Presents an integrated math/science activity in which families work together at an activity station and design and make a track for a marble to travel down using rules attached to a board. (MKR)