All About the Atmosphere

The past two weeks in room 105 has been full of learning about the atmosphere!  We have become true scientists, conducting investigations, experiments, and making observations about the world around us. We wanted to prove two things through our investigations:  That the atmosphere is made of air, and that there is water in the air.  Those are two very hard things to prove, because air cannot be seen, and water vapor is also invisible.

We conducted experiments with water bottles, balloons, straws, and even a humidifier to try to prove to ourselves that air is in the atmosphere, and water is in the air.

Below are some pictures from our last experiment involving evaporation:  We made a puddle on the ground, and watched as the water disappeared in front of our eyes!  We remembered the word evaporation, and used it to explain what was happening in our experiment.

We traced our puddles in chalk to help us better see if any changes occurred to it over time.

What do you think we noticed about our puddles?

Next week, we will apply our understanding of the atmosphere and how water changes states when we learn about the water cycle.  Having this background knowledge form our experiments will really enhance our understanding of the atmosphere.  All of this learning fits into our unit on weather!