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Delta Kits
Improve your science curriculum with standards-based Delta Science Modules. Engage students in hands-on investigations and watch as they master basic science concepts while developing key process and critical thinking skills.
Heartland AEA has a number of Delta kits that can be checked out and used in your classroom. To check out a Delta kit, click on the word 'KIT' by the name of the kit below or search for them in Media Net , to see additional resources, click on the name of the kit (ie From Seed to Plant)
Delta Correlation to the National Science Standards
The following part is designed to help teachers locate resources and materials which support science kits and are available from Heartland AEA 11. Teachers will find professional library books, videos, software, children's books, and Web links that correspond to science kits at all grade levels.
K-2 as seen at the DELTA website
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Sunshine and Shadows ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students explore shadows from every possible angle. They begin with a simple definition of shadow and end with a full-fledged original performance in a shadow theater. Once students identify what is needed to make a shadow, a light source, a solid object, and a surface, they are off and running. In both indoor and outdoor activities, students make predictions about how shadows change position, size, and length, and even become multiples or disappear. From their experiments they draw conclusions about the variables, such as the sun's movement, that affect shadow shapes. They create silhouettes to explore shadow properties. And they build sundials to put shadows to work telling time.
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2-3 as seen at the DELTA website
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Soil Science ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students take to the schoolyard with trowels in hand. Several weeks later, they are familiar with sampling techniques and soil components, weathering and erosion, minerals and nutrients, and more. Students separate soil into particle layers and classify soil types according to estimated proportions. Once they understand what soil is, they find out how it is made by modeling weathering by plants and water. Next, students observe how earthworms mix and enrich soil. They discover that nutrient-rich soil helps plants grow, and plants, in turn, help soil resist erosion. Grass gardens, pollution detectors, worm farms, and erosion models offer strong hands-on experiences.
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3-4 as seen at the DELTA website
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Electrical Circuits ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students explore Electrical Circuits with twelve hands-on activities and the Delta Science Reader. Once your class has mastered simple open and closed circuits, students progress to constructing parallel and series circuits. They investigate the factors, besides switches, that affect the flow of current. Students design circuit testers to determine how well certain solids and liquids conduct electric current. They demonstrate resistance by comparing the bulb brightness produced by different wires. For fun, students create circuit puzzles to outwit one another with hidden configurations. They also learn to depict their own sophisticated electrical setups with circuit diagrams.
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Weather Instruments ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students explore Weather Instruments with twelve hands-on activities and the Delta Science Reader. They measure weather conditions using kit tools and devices of their own making. Observations begin with temperature. Students compare Fahrenheit and Celsius scales and take thermometer readings twice a day. They investigate air pressure and barometers, and construct wind vanes and record wind direction and wind strength. Experiments with evaporation and condensation lead to humidity tests, cloud classifications, and indoor precipitation. From their own data, students draw conclusions about connections among the weather factors. They learn how and why today's factors reliably predict tomorrow's weather.
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5-6 as seen at the DELTA website
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Color and Light ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students use prisms to investigate the full range of colors in white light, called the visible spectrum. They experiment with subtractive color mixing and discover the significance of the primary pigments. Students separate pigments with paper chromatography and then combine colors by blending filtered light beams. Experiences with both subtractive and additive mixing help students understand the role of the eyes and brain in perceiving color. That understanding is extended as students identify the dot patterns in printed pictures and manipulate color filters to make colors disappear. Students also explore afterimages and phantom images, turn two-dimensional drawings into three-dimensional drawings, and demonstrate persistence of vision.
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Weather Forecasting ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students explore Weather Forecasting with twelve hands-on activities and the Delta Science Reader. They discover the importance of accurate weather forecasting and record keeping, and how to do both. Student partners build weather stations that are the headquarters of their unit work. They fill the station with temperature, rainfall, and wind data. Then they add barometric pressure and relate it to weather conditions. Students plot fronts and other large-scale factors on weather maps, differentiate cloud formations, and research weather folklore. With the help of a video, they delve into severe weather hurricanes and tornadoes for which forecasting is especially valuable.
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Simple Machines ( Kit Available from Heartland) Students explore Simple Machines with twelve hands-on activities and the Delta Science Reader. By measuring force as they lift, push, and pull loads, your class will determine the mathematical relationship between force and work. Students build and/or operate classroom versions of the six simple machines: lever, wheel and axle, pulley, inclined plane, wedge, and screw. They investigate how (and how much) each one makes work easier by magnifying, modifying, transferring, or changing the direction of the applied force. By calculating such factors as gear ratios and the negative effects of friction, students discover the tradeoff between force and distance. Students also identify and examine household or other everyday simple machines.
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6-8 as seen at the DELTA website
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•Chemical Interactions ( Kit available from Heartland) Activity sheets become lab reports as young chemists hypothesize, test, record, and draw conclusions about the nature of matter. In this chemistry primer, students calculate liquid densities and apply filtration and evaporation to suspensions and solutions. They measure gas volumes and pressures to demonstrate Boyle's law. They investigate atomic structure and learn to read the Periodic Table. With three–dimensional models and corresponding chemical equations, students explore the covalent and ionic molecular bonds of compounds, including double bonds of fats. Then, they conduct three experiments: a neutralization reaction between bases and acids, an oxidation reaction that produces rust, and a double replacement reaction to form a precipitation.
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•Plants in Our World ( Kit Available from Heartland) From corn to cotton to cork, plant products are varied and valuable. This unit invites students to investigate Plants in Our World from the roots up. First they focus on the tissue system that transports water and nutrients within the plant. Next, controlled experiments with seedlings confirm that plants need light and water. Students use three chemical indicators as they test plants for carbon dioxide, starch, and chlorophyll. Through these investigations, they determine how plants give off and take in gases, and produce and store food. Students express their findings in equations for respiration, transpiration, and photosynthesis. To close, students compile a comprehensive list of the ways people use plants and plant-based materials.
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•Electrical Connections ( Kit Available from Heartland) After detecting static charges with electroscopes, students differentiate between static and current electricity. The rest of the unit focuses on the transfer of electrical energy by electric current. Students build, operate, and analyze circuits, becoming skilled in assembling bulbs, batteries, wires, and switches. They explore the concepts of energy sources, receivers, and converters. Student-built galvanometers detect the presence, direction, comparative amount, and conservation of current in series and parallel circuits. Students also experiment with factors, like resistance, that influence current, and convert electrical to kinetic energy to operate a motor. The final current activities focus on three-way and dimmer switches.
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•Matter and Change (Was formerly Chemical Interactions) (Kit available from Heartland) Activity sheets become lab reports as young chemists hypothesize, test, record, and draw conclusions about the nature of matter. In this chemistry primer, students calculate liquid densities and apply filtration and evaporation to suspensions and solutions. They measure gas volumes and pressures to demonstrate Boyle's law. They investigate atomic structure and learn to read the Periodic Table. With three–dimensional models and corresponding chemical equations, students explore the covalent and ionic molecular bonds of compounds, including double bonds of fats. Then, they conduct three experiments: a neutralization reaction between bases and acids, an oxidation reaction that produces rust, and a double replacement reaction to form a precipitation.
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