| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

What's happening in class

Page history last edited by Sandra McVannel 10 years, 11 months ago

What's happening in class?

Day Four:

Students were asked to review what we learned after completing both the newspaper and the tube tower challenge.  We reviewed all the "strategies" for building a tall, stable structure then let the groups loose again with the newspaper challenge.  It was interesting to watch the dynamics of the groups.  Some were intent on making sure the structure was stable before adding the height, when others were interested in the height and forgot about the stability.  Again, it was a great learning experience.  Check out the "second try" towers below:

 

       

 

 

Day Three:

We reviewed our learning after Day one and Day Two....today's challenge was to use the tallest tube and turn it into a "stable tower".  We talked about how forces play on tall towers like the CN Tower (i.e. wind, storms etc.) and the kids were let loose to decide what materials they could use to make the tower stable.  They also were encouraged to try different building strategies.  Here's what they came up with:

 

         

After building, we discovered that in order for the tower to be stable:

**it needs a strong foundation (we used a shirt cardboard)

**it needs a wide base (some of us used newspaper, and others used plasticenet)

**use strong materials (sometimes we had to make the materials stronger by adding more or doubling up (newspapers)

**put weight inside the tower at the bottom to prevent it from tipping over

**adding extra supports outside the tower 

 

Day Two:

Using a photo of their newspaper towers, the groups assessed their building skills.  First they needed to decide if they were successful meeting the challenge?  Then they needed to record ways that they were successful and things they could try next time to improve their building skills.  

 

Then we did a quick experiment using three tubes of different height.  We stood the tubes on a shirt cardboard and predicted which tube would fall first when a force was applied to lift the card.  We discovered that the tallest tube fell first and the shortest tube was most stable.

     

 

 

 

         

 

Day one of our structures and stability unit:

The challenge was to build the tallest stable structure that could hold a tennis ball for 15 seconds.  By looking at the five towers that the groups created, you can see some great ideas.  There were challenges due to the materials, but most groups had some success with stability.  Next time we meet, we will discuss the great things about our towers, and the things that could be improved.

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.