Science is...

To start off the school year with my 7th graders, I like to find out what they think about science.  Not necessarily whether they like it or not, but rather what they think science is all about.  Sometime during the first week of school I have them complete this activity, and as you'll see below, I'm never disappointed in their responses!  

Basically, I tell them that they need to finish the sentence "Science is..." but instead of just writing a sentence, their goal is to finish the sentence with a picture!  We get out my stash of old magazines (My mom works at a dentist office so she always gives me the old magazines that they don't want to keep in the waiting room!).  I tell my students to search through the magazines and find a picture that could complete the sentence.  Then I have them glue the picture to some construction paper, and I always ask them to include one additional sentence explaining why they chose the picture that they did.  I like to let them work in groups of 2-3 students for this activity.

I took pictures of a few of my favorites that were turned in this year...

 

             

Here's a couple that I thought were very creative answers...

Yeah, I literally laughed out loud when I saw this one!

And then I laughed even harder when I saw this one!

And finally, my absolute favorite one of the year.  They didn't quite finish the sentence "Science is...," in fact you can see that they scribbled out the "is," but I love it so much that it's hanging on my classroom door for all to see!

So there you have it!  The creativity of 7th graders...how could you NOT love teaching this age?! :)

Rachel