Our State Capital

Last week the fourth grade had the chance to visit our state capital of Annapolis.  Nearly 200 fourth graders boarded the buses early Monday morning and traveled to one of Maryland's most historic and beautiful locations.  The students enjoyed lunch by the water and took in the sites of the town.  From there, we visited the U.S. Naval Academy.  We looked in at the crypt of Captain John Paul Jones, a model of courage and resilience from our Navy's first fleet.  We moved our tour to the State Capitol.  The students got to stand in the same place George Washington resigned his commission after the American Revolution.  The students were excellent representatives of Urbana Elementary.  It was so much fun to see them in a new environment, exploring the history we have learned in school.

A special thank you to our wonderful chaperones who braved the trip and helped make sure everyone was safe and secure during the day!

A Trip Beyond the Stars

This week, our fantastic fourth graders began a project of intergallactic proportions.  In groups of four, students are creating a travel company that specials in vacation packages to different planets.  Each group selected a planet to research and students chose one of four jobs within their company: travel agent, rocket specialist, space suit designer, or astronomer.  The final product will be a presentation of the company's vacation travel plans to clients looking to see their chosen planet.  From the sites that will be seen to the amenities and scientific features of the shuttle to space, our students will be creating everything! The students are excited to work on this project and have already come up with ideas that are out of this world!

Today we went to the Lowe Lab to research information for each person's job.  The students used websites chosen specifically to help them find information for their part of the project.  Our eager scientists couldn't wait to get more research time, so if possible, I have attached the web sites for each job on edmodo to encourage at-home exploration.  Just open the document that matches your job and surf away!

http://www.edmodo.com/student

Hubble and Deep Space

Today in science we discussed constellations and just how far stars are from our eyes on Earth.  We looked at a scale model of the universe and found out that the nearest star after our Sun is 4.5 light years away!

In order to get a better idea of how large space is and what celestial objects are found there, scientists use telescopes to search in the depths of space.  We learned about the Hubble telescope and looked at some of the images this amazing tool has gathered in recent months.  We watched a clip from the Hubble website, sponsored by NASA.  Our students loved to see images of deep space.  For those interested, here is the complete video in the link below.

http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/hubbles_universe_unfiltered/

Enjoy!