Mr Nolde's Fourth Grade Page!!

Before trying any of these experiments, you must have "Shockwave" and "Flash" on your computer.

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Click on any of the subject areas to quickly get to that section of the 4th Grade Page.
Classifying Living Things	Color & Light	Electricity & Magnetism
The Human Body	Sound	The Solar System

Classifying Living Things -In this activity, you will see a large grid of green square tiles. Each tile will have a different plant or animal on it. See if you click on the correct tiles that belong to the category shown in each round of the game. When you think that you have clicked on all of the correct tiles, then click the "GO" button on the bottom of the screen. You will then find out if you got them all correct. BE SURE TO PLAY THIS ACTIVITY MORE THAN ONCE!!! When you find out your final score, be sure to click the "Play Again" button for more fun.

Fun with Venn Diagrams -Did you enjoy our Venn Diagram activity in class? In this activity, take the Venn Diagram challenge! See if you can figure out the rules of the Venn Diagram by placing the correct sizes, shapes, & colors into the appropriate circles. When you think that you have finished, be sure to select the rule for each circle by selecting from the drop-down menu. Once you have selected the appropriate rules click the "Check Rule" box to see if you were correct. Good luck!

Leopards of the Night -We discovered in class that one way in which animals and insects are able to survive is by using a strategy called camouflage. But did you realize that there is more than one kind of camouflage strategy?? In this activity, you will learn about the various survival strategies that animals and insects use. Drag each animal over the label that best describes its survival strategy. Once you put the animal in the correct column, its name will appear.

The Disappearing Act -Why is it so difficult to see animals and insects when they lie perfectly still? Oftentimes, it's not just their colors that blend in with the environment. This activity will help explain why.

Build a Fish -We learned in class that all birds have a certain design to their beak that enables them to capture specific types of food. But the survival strategy of having a specific body design can be applied to just about any creature out there in the world! In this activity, see if you can design a fish with the right adaptations to survive. Try different combinations and see which ones work together.

Fun with Food Webs -See if you can put all of the plants and animals in the correct spots for three different types of food webs- meadow, arctic, & pond habitats.

Food Chain Reaction -A lot of people don't realize just how much the survival of each plant and animal affects the balance of a food web. Play this game to learn more.

Build a Food Chain -This activity provides a nice overview of the basic parts of a food chain. Once you've reviewed the basic parts, see if you can put all of the plants and animals in the correct spots for 3 different habitats: a woodland area, a river, and a seashore habitat.

Variation of Life -In this activity, take a careful look at the animals and plants as they go past you. Click and drag on each living organism and see if you can place them in the correct groups!

The Minibeast Identification Game -Scientists oftentimes use what's called a dichotomous key to classify living things. See if you can follow the flow of this chart to correctly identify the various minibeasts in this activity.

The Life Cycle Game -Not only did I have a lot of fun playing this game, but I also learned a few things as well! In this game, try to put all of the life cycle stages in the correct order. When you are finished, press the "check" button to see how you did. Remember, there are two difficulty levels for each life cycle. The harder level includes life stages that do not belong to the organism.

Life in the City -You might not think that the city would be a habitat that would support a great diversity of life. This activity takes you to a city park and gives you a closer look at the surprising world around us!

The Color Factory -Enter the color factory to learn how to mix colors to create new ones. Mix paints in the mixing room, learn about the color wheel in the sorting sector, and and then paint online pictures with your freshly mixed paints in the Messy Area.

Mixing Light Beams and Mixing Paint -This activity allows you to create an almost infinite amount of colors by mixing different amounts of red, green, & blue light beams. Be sure to click on the "Mix to Match" button and test your ability to match the color given by controlling the various amounts of these 3 light beams. Also, be sure to check out the Mixing Ink/Paint section as well!

Mix & Match -In this activity, you can mix just three colors of light to make over 16 million different colors!

Color Design -Have fun designing your own color sport team uniforms by mixing and matching different colors.

Depth Spinner -This optical illusion is really cool. Be careful. You could get pretty dizzy if you stare at it for too long!

Changing Illusions -Certain patterns confuse our eyes and our brain. Scientists are still riddled by why some of these illusions trick our brain. Find out for yourself!

Identifying Sounds -Did you have fun in science lab trying to identify different sounds that were recorded in the science lab at Campbell School? Try your hand at this activity! Make sure that you play each game by clicking on the "next" arrow on the bottom left-hand side of the game.

Juice Bottle Jingles -Did you enjoy making our musical instruments in science lab using water, plastic stirrers and beakers? This activity also allows you to create music using bottles with different amounts of water in them. They even give you the written music to perform different songs!

Sound Beats -In class, we learned that pitch (highness & lowness) is controlled by the frequency of the pitch. This sound experiment allows you to listen to sounds that have a similar frequency. When you play two pitches that are similar in frequency, you will hear pulses (or beats) due to the interference of the sound waves.

Sight vs. Sound Reflexes -Which will you respond to faster, seeing something flash on the screen or hearing a sound? This activity will explore this question by letting you design your own experiment. The results just might surprise you?

Dangerous Decibels Virtual Exhibit -If you're not careful, you can actually do permanent damage to your ears if you don't take care of them. Remember, you're only born with 2 good ears. If you don't take care of them, you could suffer from permanent hearing loss. This site has a lot of great activities to learn about how you can protect your ears.

How Loud is Too Loud? - Check out this interactive sound ruler to learn about how loud everyday sounds are to our ears. Find out which sounds may actually damage our ears!

Auditory Illusions -After our unit on color and light, we're quite familiar with optical illusions, but did you know that there are sound or "auditory illusions" as well? This experiment will definitely play a trick on your ears!

The Beat Goes on -What happens if you combine different tones together at the same time? This experiment allows you to do just that! Some of the resulting sounds are rather interesting to say the least!

Find the Highest Note -This site has three different sound illusions that ask you to pick out the highest sounding pitch.... good luck!!

How old would you be on another planet? -As you may have guessed, the length of a day & length of a year on other planets are very different. In this activity, see how many years old you would be if you had been born on another planet.

How much do I weigh on Mars? - Go to the weighing station to find out! As you learned in third grade, gravity is the force that pulls things towards the center of the Earth. When we weigh something, we are actually measuring this force! Your bodyweight will be different, depending on what planet you're standing on!

Planet Size Comparison -You might be wondering why Pluto is no longer considered a planet in our solar system. Several of the reasons as to why it lost its planetary status all have to do with the fact that it is not very large. In fact, Pluto is even smaller than our Moon! This activity does a great job doing side-by-side comparisons of our planets. Just make two selections and then click on the "compare" button.

Solar System Jigsaw Puzzle -In the first level of this game, see if you can put all of our planets in their correct place. The second level tests your ability to place all of the moons found in our solar system in the correct place. Don't forget to play the third level of this game called the "Hardware Level." This level tests your ability to correctly place all of the probes & telescopes found in our solar system.

Name the Planets -Do you know your solar system? Warm up with this activity! Click and drag the correct name over the correct picture.

How Much Light Pollution is in Our Sky? -This site will give you a great idea as to how much light pollution there is in our area. It will also give you a little bit different perspective of the night sky depending upon what latitude you place yourself in the world. If you move the other slider closer towards the street light, you will see how much more of the night sky that you are missing out on!

Mr. Nolde's Pictures from the Nov. 8th 2003 Lunar Eclipse -As we learned in class, eclipses of the moon are more commonly seen. If you ever get a chance to witness a lunar eclipse, I highly recommend documenting its progress with a digital camera just like I did!

Mr. Nolde's Pictures from the Oct. 27th 2004 Lunar Eclipse -Here is my second attempt at documenting a lunar eclipse. This time, I was able to do some more experimenting with the shutter speed to capture more of the red & orange colors when the moon was completely eclipsed by the Earth.

Solar & Lunar Eclipse Animations -This animation does an excellent job of demonstrating the various kinds of lunar and solar eclipses that are possible. Be sure to click on the "tell me more" button to see other related animations as well!

Cyberspace Fun Room -This page has lots of links to great games about space. My favorites include "Design a Planet" and "Astronaut Dress-up."

Solar Eclipse Animations -Did you know that there are actually three types of solar eclipses? Click here to see animations of all three types of solar eclipses.

How long is a minute? -We know that an earth year is 365 and one quarter days long. That sure feels like a long time.......... How long does one minute feel like?

The Moon Illusion -Why does the moon look so huge when it first rises? Click here to find out. This site lets you actually move the moon over the horizon!

The Hidden Dangers of Electricity -Every year, tens of thousands of people in the U.S. are killed or injured from contact with electricity. Play this game to learn more about how you can protect you, your friends, & family from the dangers of electricity. See if you can get a perfect score of 16,500 points by being able to correctly identify each dangerous electrical situation in all three of the neighborhoods in this game. Good luck!

Make the Safe Choice -Making the wrong decisions when it comes to electricity could cost you your life! Test your ability to handle electrical hazards in the home by playing this game. See if you can get a perfect score of 12.

Build a Circuit -See if you can complete a circuit that will light up the bulb in this activity. Once you've finished building your circuit, be sure to use the switch to turn on the bulb.

Placing More than 1 Bulb in a Circuit -Do you remember our work with series circuits? What happens to the amount of current in our circuit when we place more than one bulb in the same path?

Conductors & Insulators Experiment -Did you enjoy our experiment testing different materials to see whether or not they conduct electricity in science lab? If so, you're going to LOVE this activity! There are even a few items that might still surprise you! Just click on the pickle to start the activity.

Magnets & Electromagnets Around the House -Find as many of the magnets and electromagnets as you can in this house. I think that you will be surprised just how many magnets and electromagnets are found in many common items around the house.

Build an Electromagnet -Try to build the strongest electromagnet that you can by picking up all 75 iron fillings! In this experiment, you can change the type of wire, the wire thickness, the number of coils, the type of current, and how much current. Only when you use the correct combination of these five things, will you be able to pick up all 75 iron filings!

The Ohm Zone -This is one of the best interactive sites that I've seen on electricity. This site allows you to build all of the circuits that we have built in class plus much, much more! Dig in and have fun!

The Virtual Electron Microscope -In class, we will be working with a light microscope to see cells in our body. This activity lets you examine a whole lot of different things using a virtual electron microscope! You can focus, change the magnification, and move the item around to see different parts of it. I hope that you have as much fun as I did doing this activity!

The Amazing Human Body -Get ready for a really fun online adventure exploring the digestive system, the skeletal system to name just a few of the activities!

The Human Skeleton -See if you can correctly this human skeleton by clicking and dragging each label to the right space.

Bertie's Body -Bertie had his vital organs out for spring cleaning but, unfortunately, the doctors forgot to put them back in properly. Can you help Bertie by putting them back in the correct places?

The Crazy Calcium Caper -It is so very important to make sure that we get enough calcium in what we eat every day. Play this game to discover how we can do this!

How the Body Works -Did you ever wonder how your ear works? Did you ever stop to think about how your eye works? This site contains 5 different activities to help you to understand how different parts of the human body work. Click on the different pictures to go to each activity.

Operation- Heart Transplant - Enter the virtual operating room, where you will be given a scalpel to perform a heart transplant of your own! This simplified operation in 19 steps will give you a better understanding about how heart transplants are done. Have no fear. The surgeons by your side will guide your every move and prevent you from making any mistakes! Click on the beating heart to begin your adventure!

Probe the Brain! -Map the brain using your trusty electric probe. In this activity, you can find out which parts of the human brain control the movement of different body muscles by using an electric probe.

What Makes You YOU? -Did you ever wonder what makes each of us different from one another? This activity will give you a clearer understanding of what genetics is and why we are all different.

Changing our Perception -We know how to put one foot in front of the other. With a bit of practice, our brain has learned how to perceive the world in the "correct" way. What happens when our "correct" world of perception is changed? Try to see how fast you can work the typewriter in this experiment!


To Fourth Grade!!