My Gummi Bear Needs CPR

During the gummi bear lab, students were to measure and weigh their bears. We were studying about density. I had put a gummi bear in a clear plastic cup and labelled it "control." Unfortunately, somebody ate the control bear. "Oh dear," I said, "we are never to eat anything in the science lab." All of the fingers pointed to Eddie who quickly objected, "It wasn't me! It wasn't me!" I put another gummi bear back in the cup for our control bear.

The day before students wrote down their calculations of their bears and then we put them in clear plastic cups containing water. The students hypothesized about what would happen to the bears. I was thinking students would write about the bears weighing more because they would absorb the water. Some students thought their bear would weigh less because it would dissolve. One group wrote, "We hypothesize that our gummi bear is going to drown." On day 2 they wrote, "We were right. Our bear drowned and now he is decomposing. He has lost his legs."

Another student, Howie, said, "This is so unfair." I went over to his table and he was picking out little pieces of his bear in the water. Some bears just dissolved faster than others. He said, "Man! This is just wrong. My bear is obliterated." I had to laugh.

"Boys and Girls, at first our gummi bears sunk to the bottom. The bears were very dense. On day 2 our bears floated and were buoyant. And our control bear..." I turned to show the cup and noticed the bear was gone again. I looked at Eddie and he raised both hands up, "It wasn't me." I looked over at another group of students that were busily working together. Then I overheard them trying to do fake CPR on their bear. I had to laugh. I had all of the students put their cups back on the shelf and then started again. I just love my 4th rotation of science students. They are so funny. They are a challenge to keep on task and stay focused on the learning objective. I think it's because they have been quiet and focused in all their other classes and when they finally hit science, their last core subject of the day, they just can't help themselves anymore.