Science Circus: Measuring Mass

Our Activity:

During our CI 3543 class, we conducted an in-class science circus.  In groups of two, we came up with various science activities.  I worked with Lori Dillard to create an activity for measuring mass.  For our activity, we had a balancing scale, a bucket of plastic frogs, and a variety of other objects.  In order to conduct the activity, our classmates had to weigh each object to the nearest frog.  By doing this, our classmates were able to see that was not necessarily correlated with how much an object weighs.  Even though an object was larger than the cup of frogs on the scale, it did not mean that the object weighed more than the frogs. 

Ways for Improvement:

Following our in-class science circus, we discussed all of the activities as a class.  During the discussion, our class provided each group with ways for improving each activity.  For our activity, the class suggested that we provided clearer instructions for how to round up or down.  This suggestion was given because some of the objects weighed did not come up to exact frogs.  As a class, we decided that we could have lighter objects such as paper clips that we could add to the frogs to completely balance the scale.