Our 6th Grade Science teacher, Mrs. Pam Radig, graciously allowed me to disrupt her Science class today!
And.... disruption it was in the most amazing way. Our students experienced augmented reality with the Elements 4D app by DAQRI, and I was blessed to witness their engagement and reactions as they made their way through the guide lab sheet that Mrs. Radig created on exploring aspects of matter and elements.
Elements 4D is a 4D Experience™ supercharging the chemistry classroom. Elements 4D is a set of interactive blocks that help students learn the Periodic Table by showing how elements combine into new chemical substances, what the reactions look like, and the resulting chemical equation.
Iowa Core Standards covered in this activity:
NGSS: MS-PS1-1: Develop models to describe the atomic composition of simple molecules and extended structures.
MS - PS1-2: Analyze and interpret data on the properties of substances before and after the substances interact to determine if a chemical reaction has occurred.
Using the 4D Elements app on Ipads, and the element cubes (printing the paper cubes works just fine ) that go along with the app, students were able to have elements come to life. They were able to determine properties of elements such as its state of matter, its color, and/or its texture. Then, the students were able to explore what happens if two elements are put together. Some reacted and formed new substances with totally new properties while others did not react. This will lead into a class discussions about compounds and mixtures.
I captured the classroom "scene" with a few snapshots.
The students really enjoyed this high interest, high involvement activity and gave me a few comments I just have to share.
"One thing I liked about the activity was that it showed what that element looked like in the cube and that it a measuring system on the side. It was a lot of fun!" - Randon
"I liked the element activity because it was fun to be able to see what some of the elements looked like and what state of matter they were.I also liked it because it was fun to learn what 2 elements made a compound. IT WAS FUN!!!!!" - Megan
"I liked it because it showed us if the elements were solids, liquids, or gases and it showed us what happens when you put two elements together. It was very cool." - Jacob
"I thought it was cool because I liked how it showed what each element form was. I also liked how it would show what they look like." - Madalynn
If this activity interests you, explore Elements 4D in your classroom!
Thanks for inviting me into your classroom Mrs. Radig!