Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Our "Mummies"

Here in Wisconsin, most children refer to their mothers as "Mom" or "Mommy." When our blogging partners in New Zealand referred to their mothers as "Mum" or "Mummy," we chuckled a little, because when we think of mummy, we think of our Ancient Egypt study of mummification!

In 6th grade, students learn about ancient civilizations. Recently, Egpyt was the focus, and students learned about mummification. Our science teacher, Mrs. Kohls, discovered a terrific activity for simulating the mummification process. For the past several weeks, we have been "mummifying" chicken legs!

First, students washed, measured, and weighed their chicken legs. 
Oops! Can you see which rule of lab safety we forgot to follow in the next two photos?


\

If you guessed "Not wearing goggles," you guessed correctly! 
Even though washing and measuring chicken legs isn't an activity that would likely damage the eyes,
 it's best to always be in the habit of wearing goggles when conducting experiments in the lab.

Next, students placed their chicken legs inside plastic bags 
containing a mixture of salt, baking soda, and  cinnamon.


Each week thereafter, students take their "chicken mummies" out, measure and weigh them, 


record the changes, and put them in a bag with a new batch of the drying ingredients. 

In our studies, we learned that this stage of the mummification process took 40 days.
We are currently in our fifth week of this activity.
It will be interesting to see the final results of our mummification process
and to discuss how our process is like/unlike the process the Egyptians used
so many years ago in the desert.

7 comments:

  1. To House B
    Hello my name is Jade. My buddy is Mikyla. I went to her blog to comment but she has not got any posts yet. Please let me know when she has a new post.

    I go to vardon school and we have a pool in our school YAY!!! .
    From Jade NZ .


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    Replies
    1. Yes, we are working on Mikayla! I will tell her you asked about her blog. Please feel free to visit other student posts while you wait :)

      Thanks for commenting!

      Delete
  2. Hi House B

    We loved reading your post! We guessed correctly about wearing safety goggles in the science Lab!
    We giggled a bit too when you thought we meant "mummies" like in mummification in Egypt. We love our mums!
    Isn't it funny how in different countries we call things different names.
    E.g; in NZ we use rubbers to rub our pencil. Do you call them erasers?

    from room 7
    NZ

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    Replies
    1. Yes, we call them erasers. We say math and you say maths. We say learned and you say learnt. It's also fun to see the things we have in common, such as swimming at school!

      Delete
  3. To Mrs. Forsberg
    Thank you for your comment!
    It does not snow at all here in Hamilton but it does in some areas of new zealand. It is very rare for it to snow in Hamilton. The last time it snowed I was 5 and now I am 8 and that's the only time it has snowed in my life time. It only snows in a place near Taupo. Lots of people go there in the middle of winter. We still have to wait a while for that because it is the start Autumn.On the playground we like everything there is we are even getting a new playground.In the enviro agents garden we got all sorts of plants like raspberry, tomatoes, broccoli and other things.
    From Tegan
    Room 7
    Vardon School

    ReplyDelete
  4. To Mrs.forsberg

    I loved your comment on our blog.No we have no snow in Hamilton. Sometimes it does in Christchurch.I like monkey bars on our school playground. We are growing raspberries. They are my favourite fruit.
    from Zoe
    Room 7
    Vardon School
    NZ

    ReplyDelete