Ideas and Inventions

The Ideas and Inventions module consists of four sequential investigations that promote student creativity and inventiveness. Each investigation provides valuable science content while introducing a conventional technique for revealing the unseen.

FOSS expects students to:

• Use techniques to see details about the world that would otherwise be difficult to observe.
• Explore the techniques of chromatography, rubbing, carbon printing, and mirror imagery.
• Solve problems using the techniques of chromatography and carbon printing.
• Record and compare patterns observed in leaf veins, fingerprints, and ink pigments.
• Gain experience with texture and pattern in a variety of materials.
• Express individual and group creativity through open-ended discoveries and inventions.
• Invent applications to extend the use of specific techniques.
• Acquire the vocabulary associated with texture and patterns of materials and exercise language in the context of science.
• Use scientific thinking processes to conduct investigations and build explanations: observing, communicating, comparing, and organizing.