“Middle school science is most essentially about bringing students to think in an entirely new way. This new way of thinking requires that we set aside assumptions we have lived with since our own earliest science lessons, assumptions of which we are mostly unconscious. It requires that we see for ourselves the patterns the world has placed in front of us. It requires that we think for ourselves, based on our own experience.” – Jennifer Chace, Assistant Director of Curriculum and Instruction
This Curriculum Spotlight features a peek into a Physics Main Lesson with Mr. Ebert’s sixth-grade class during which the students were challenged to share their observations after experiencing how temperature affected their hands, pewter, brass, and liquid — all in the course of two hours!
WATCH VIDEO OF PEWTER EXPERIMENT HERE
“Physics is introduced in the sixth-grade year. During the course of study, the child learns to understand and appreciate the phenomena of sound, light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, while developing his/her observational and explanatory skills. It is at this stage that concepts based on the laws of mechanics are introduced. The introduction of the physical sciences at this age is also a response to the intellectual development of the sixth-grade child, which is characterized by greater powers of discernment and judgment and a new capacity to grasp cause and effect.” (Alliance for Public Waldorf Education)
