Presentations for Grades 5-8
(PDF version to print)

Common Fallacies
Chirping Crickets and the Scientific Method: Recording and Interpreting Scientific Data
Students record observations of cricket chirps, form and test hypotheses, and critically analyze their efforts. Students’ experiences help them learn about accuracy of observation; the effect of increasing the amount of data; separating reasonable from unreasonable ideas; and the role of assumptions in scientific thought and why they cannot be avoided. This activity uses cricket chirps that have already been “collected” by audio tape. It can also include videocassette, photos, additional collected audio recordings, and live crickets.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 1 – 3 hours
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: none

Common Fallacies: Assessing Everyday Reasoning
Readers’ theater, small group discussion and activities, student-designed skits, and the museum educator’s interactive style of exposition combine to guide students in analyzing reasoning as they use it in their everyday lives. Students improve their ability to explicitly analyze fallacious reasoning that they already recognize as such intuitively, then transfer these skills to more subtle and complex situations. Exposition includes powerpoint (or overheads) and handouts. The teacher receives a packet with sample review and test questions and explanations and examples of all terms and concepts.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 1 - 3 hours
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: 5

Dating Very Old Things: Relative and Absolute Dating with Rocks and Fossils
Small-group activities facilitate students’ intuitive discovery of the conceptual underpinnings of relative and absolute dating techniques used by geologists. Interactive exposition by the museum educator then helps students structure the concepts into principles, which they then apply to actual and simulated geologic problems. Exposition includes powerpoint (or overheads) and handouts. The teacher receives a packet containing explanations and examples of all terms and concepts, reading selections to use in their own classroom to introduce or to summarize geologic dating, and masters of all handouts used in the presentation.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 1 - 3 hours
Group size maximum: 60
Group size minimum: none

Earth, the Original Recycler
Students use rock specimens, photos, small group activities, powerpoint presentation (or overheads) with handouts, video, and demonstrations to understand the relationships and processes that make up the rock cycle.
Suggested for grades 3 - 12
Suggested length: 30 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: none

Everybody is Important: Nature’s Food Web
Students develop and act out the roles of animals and plants with specific functions. They discuss and explore the physical factors of their ecosystems, energy flow beginning with the sun, and the limiting factors that affect their growth and survival.
Suggested for grades 5 - 8
Suggested length: 30 - 60 minutes
Group size maximum: 30
Group size minimum: 10

Geologic Time
Whole-group and small-group activities, a brief video, and the museum educator’s interactive style of exposition develop students’ abilities to physically model geologic time and the proportionate placement of Earth events on a timeline. Exposition includes powerpoint (or overheads) and handouts. The teacher receives a packet containing explanations and examples of all terms and concepts, brief reading material to use in their own classroom as an introduction or summarization of the topic, plus masters of all handouts used in the presentation.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 45 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 30
Group size minimum: 5

Meeting our Neighbors: The Reptiles, Amphibians, and Turtles of Kansas
Students experience a wide variety of live specimens, prepared specimens including a dissected snake and bullfrog, photos, demonstrations, and whole group discussion as an introduction to the herpetofauna of Kansas.
Suggested for grades K - 12
Suggested length: 30 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 30
Group size minimum: none

Minibeasts, Native and Exotic: Diversity Among Insects and Other Arthropods
Students experience live insects and other arthropods, specimens, models and charts, and use magnifiers to explore the world of the arthropod.
Suggested for grades K - 8
Suggested length: 30 - 60 minutes
Group size maximum: 30
Group size minimum: none

Paleo-Puzzles: What’s it Like to Be a Paleontologist?
Students participate in an activity that simulates two hallmark characteristics of field paleontology: having to proceed despite uncertainty about identification of the specimen, and the complicating factor of missing skeletal elements. Puzzles made on craft sticks (Popsicle sticks) serve in place of actual specimens. Students relate their experiences and insights in a group discussion that incorporates information about careers in this area of paleontology with stories about present and past figures in this field.
Suggested for grades 3 - 8
Suggested length: 45 - 60 minutes
Group size maximum: 30
Group size minimum: none

Pangea: Before, During, and After
Students experience the power of plate tectonics to integrate observations on diverse topics. Alternating individual or small-group work with the museum educator’s interactive exposition, students add the dimension of time to their understanding of the distribution of continents and oceans on Earth, and connect those patterns with patterns in evolution. Exposition includes powerpoint (or overheads), handouts, and demonstrations. The teacher receives a packet containing explanations and examples of all terms and concepts, reading selections to use in their own classroom to introduce or to summarize geologic history, and masters of all handouts used in the presentation.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 1 - 3 hours
Group size maximum: 60
Group size minimum: none

Pet Rocks: Animal Adaptations and Scientific Names
Students use their imagination and craft materials to create “pet” animals or plants using a fist-sized rock or a stick as the beginning. They invent a descriptive species name for it, then use special cards to “latinize” the name into a scientific name. They then may analyze the adaptations of their pet and the ways that insufficient adaptation could result in extinction of the new species.
Suggested for grades K - 8
Suggested length: 45 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: none

Reading the Rocks: Kansas from Pangea to the Present
Students use rock and fossil specimens, photos, large and small group activities, powerpoint presentation (or overheads) with handouts, and demonstrations to understand the last 286 million years of Kansas history.
Suggested for grades 3 - 12
Suggested length: 45 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: none

Scientific Reasoning
Small-group discussions and activities, imaginative, impromptu development of scenarios, individual writing projects, and the museum educator’s interactive style of exposition provide students with the tools to move from step to step in the scientific process, and to provide a critical analysis of scientific arguments. Exposition includes powerpoint (or overheads) and handouts. The teacher receives a packet with explanations and examples of all terms and concepts, as well as sample review and test questions.
Suggested for grades 5 - 12
Suggested length: 1½ - 4 hours
Group size maximum: 60
Group size minimum: 5

When the West Was Really Wild
Students use actual fossils and cast specimens, models, pictures, powerpoint (or slide) presentation with handouts, and small group activities to understand the vertebrate animal life of Kansas’ past and the fossil evidence that informs our study of it.
Suggested for grades 3 - 12
Suggested length: 60 - 90 minutes
Group size maximum: 45
Group size minimum: none