Within this STEAM Reader Activity Book, the students of fourth Grade at Sunny Street Elementary School continue their journey with our readers. The following describes key content areas in the book and is meant as a general summary as is not comprehensive of content.
Our reader book opens to the exploration of energy and force on objects where the students investigate speed and velocity. Student Dave applies his knowledge to baseball where he hits a home run for his team. The students continue their study of energy by identifying different forms of energy. They focus on electrical energy and apply their knowledge to create a simple circuit as a birthday surprise for their teacher. In a power cut they explain to their principal that the nature of the power cut was the creation of an open circuit caused by debris breaking a power line.
The students continue their study of conservation and renewable and nonrenewable resources. On a visit to a recycling facility Anika watched her broken lunch box get recycled. The class learns about the super water molecule and its importance to the Earth, its three forms, ice, liquid water, and water vapor and how it is recycled on Earth. They relate the mysterious cracks in the playground concrete to water freezing and thawing during a particularly bad winter super storm and relate this to weathering. They continue their study of weather learning about how changes in weather occur. Tlingit’s grandfather who has a rich indigenous background comes to visit and teaches the students about conservation how to read the signs around you regarding changes in the weather and seasons. He predicts a storm that will soon arrive at the school.
The students learn about density and mixtures through the science of cooking. For Thanksgiving three of the students become super cooks and make their own trail mix as gifts for their families. However, one discovers that salt looks very similar to sugar.
Elena introduces the class to her identical twin sisters and the class embarks on trying to understand why each student looks like their parents. They study how traits can be inherited through genes on their chromosomes and how other behaviors are learned. Alejandro adopts a dog called Socks and discovers several inherited behavioral adaptations that allowed dogs to survive in the wild.
The readers follow Zane as he moves into a new house and with the help of his friends works on his backyard to create a bountiful garden. Zane learns about soil composition and how to make compost. Finally, he with his class study pollination through the life cycle of plants. Zane’s strawberries become infested with plant eating insects and he uses ladybugs that eat these insects to control the infestation. This leads the class to study food webs.
On the last few days of school, the students discover trash that had been open a strewn around the school. Their teacher informs them that the culprit was a raccoon. They learn about how raccoons have adaptations in their paws that allow them to be able to open trash bags, find food and survive. They learn about other fascinating animal and plant adaptations that allow them to survive in challenging environments.