Webelos & AOL Elective Adventure: Adventures in Science

BSA retired this adventure in May 2022. This information remains for reference only.

Webelos & AOL Elective Adventure: Adventures in Science

Do all of these:
1. An experiment is a “fair test” to compare possible explanations. Draw
a picture of a fair test that shows what you need to do to test a
fertilizer’s effects on plant growth.
2. Visit a museum, a college, a laboratory, an observatory, a zoo, an
aquarium, or other facility that employs scientists. Prepare three
questions ahead of time, and talk to a scientist about his or her work.
3. Complete any four of the following:
a. Carry out the experiment you designed for requirement 1,
above. Report what you learned about the effect of fertilizer
on the plants that you grew.
b. Carry out the experiment you designed for requirement 1,
but change the independent variable. Report what you
learned about the effect of changing the variable on the
plants that you grew.
c. Build a model solar system. Chart the distances between the
38 planets so that the model is to scale. Use what you learn
from this requirement to explain the value of making a model
in science.
d. With adult supervision, build and launch a model rocket. Use
the rocket to design a fair test to answer a question about
force or motion.
e. Create two circuits of three light bulbs and a battery.
Construct one as a series circuit and the other as a parallel
circuit.
f. Study the night sky. Sketch the appearance of the North Star
(Polaris) and the Big Dipper (part of the Ursa Major
constellation) over at least six hours. Describe what you
observed, and explain the meaning of your observations.
g. With adult assistance, explore safe chemical reactions with
household materials. Using two substances, observe what
happens when the amounts of the reactants are increased.
h. Explore properties of motion on a playground. How does the
weight of a person affect how fast they slide down a slide or
how fast a swing moves? Design a fair test to answer one of
those questions.
i. Read a biography of a scientist. Tell your den leader
or the other members of your den what the scientist was
famous for and why his or her work is important.