Our curriculum is designed for 6th-7th grade students and spans the S.C.O.P.E. of the science world here on Earth. We focus primarily听on chemistry, biology, microbiology, and microscopy. Check out the descriptions below to learn more about our curriculum setup. For our entire curriculum setup we听offer Spanish translated versions of our worksheets and have Spanish speaking volunteers to help with any barriers present due to language.听
We strive to incorporate the component of our motto,听"Thinking like a Scientist" (TLAS),听by utlizing our TLAS cards in each of our experimental designs. Understanding the scientific process is critical to stepping into the shoes of a scientist for the day and we encourage students to take our TLAS cards home with them to Think like a Scientist long after S.C.O.P.E. visits their classroom!
Should you have questions about the curriculum design or would like to get involved, please reach out to our lead curriculum coordinator, Henry听at听Henry.Valleayala@colorado.edu.
All graphics representative of the TLAS and experimentation were designed and developed by听Clair Huffine. Check out more of her artwork on her !
We are very thankful to Dr.听Alejandro Villalta C谩sares, who translated all of our documents to Spanish.
Slime is a stretchy, bouncy, gooey substance that can be fun to play with. Have you ever wondered why slime behaves the way it does? It all has to do with chemistry. Chemistry is the study of matter, which is the stuff that everything around you is made of. With this experiment students will be听testing the chemical reactions that make slime slimy.
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Overview:听Slime is a stretchy, bouncy, gooey substance that can be fun to play with.
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In this lesson, students will explore why slime behaves the way it does. Students will learn about the chemical reaction that makes slime slimy.
At the end of the lesson, students will even be able to take home their very own slime creation!
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Have you ever wondered how scientists get a sample of DNA from a plant, animal, or other organism? All living organisms have DNA. DNA is the blueprint for almost everything that happens inside the cells of an organism and is so important that it can be found in nearly every cell of a living organism. In this activity, students will make their own DNA extraction kit from household chemicals and use it to extract DNA from strawberries.
Overview: All living organisms have DNA, which is the blueprint for eveything that happens inside the cell.
In this lesson, students will make their own DNA extraction kit from household chemicals and use it to extract DNA from strawberries.
At the end of the lesson,听the students can appreciate their hard work and feast on some delicious strawberries!
Yeast, which is actually a plant, is a common ingredient to make bread. Yeast makes bread rise by 'eating' sugar and 'breathing' out a gas called carbon dioxide. With this experiment, students will test the best conditions for yeast to produce carbon dioxide by measuring how big a balloon inflates.
Overview: Yeast is a common ingredient to make bread rise by 'eating' sugar and 'breathing' out a gas called carbon dioxide.
Yeast + sugar + water 鈫� carbon dioxide
In this lesson, students will听test the best conditions for yeast to produce carbon dioxide.
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to enjoy the wonderful properties of yeast by tasting various forms of baked bread!
The entire world 鈥� our bodies included 鈥� are made up of billions of tiny living things that are so small you can't see them with just your eyes. Have you ever wondered how scientists look at those small, microscopic organisms? With a microscope! A microscope is an instrument that can be used to observe small objects, like cells. The image of an object is magnified (or made bigger) through lenses in the microscope. These lenses bend light toward the eye and make an object appear larger than it is, allowing scientists to see what would otherwise be invisible!
Overview: The world is filled with living organisms that we cannot see with our听eyes but play an important role in the world around us.
In this lesson, students will investigate how to use a light microscope to visualize the microscope world around them.
At the end of the lesson, students will draw what they see in the light microscope on shrinky dink paper to make fun pieces of art!