Handouts are available at the bottom of this post in the Resources section.

Big Idea

It’s almost time for the holidays, which means some well deserved time off. However, what do we do with our students in the days leading up to the final days?

I do a group competition that has students practice their scientific thinking in a fun Pre-Holiday Science Quiz where they predict the outcome of the stories in our advertisements – like this awesome one from days of old.

Because here at REAL Science challenge, we’re all about science, stories, and design thinking. Best of all, you can do this any time, not just before holidays.

Instructions

I tell students we use science skills in our daily lives all the time. For example, when watching ads, we actively process and analyze the symbols we see in the ads so that we can predict what the ad is about before the end.

My students have fun trying to figure out the story in an ad using some scientific thinking. Thus, the lesson before a big holiday break – like Christmas – after we’ve finished writing all our tests and wrapped up our last lesson – I have students compete in a fun, Pre-Holiday Kahoot Science Quiz where they do just that. And, some of these ads are pretty difficult (refer to the ads in the handout).

I used Kahoot to make an online quiz. I found 10 commercials and created questions related to these commercials – questions like “What is this commercial selling?” or “What do you believe is the tagline at the end of this commercial?” or “Which celebrity is not in the commercial?”. And, everything gets put into Kahoot – and for videos, all you have to do is provide the Youtube link. Now, I’m ready to go. And, because it’s hosted on Kahoot, I can host a game virtually or in my classroom – so long as my students have a smartphone or tablet. Now, go forth and create a fun one yourself.

I just tried this with a class of my students and it took roughly 20 minutes. Best of all, you can run this before any big break – like spring break or Thanksgiving.

Resources

Handout(s): Handout – A Fun Science Quiz for Any Holiday

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