Έτοιμοι για δράση;
Σχετικό υλικό
Σύνδεσμοι στο διαδίκτυο
Πόροι
Materials for building the protector: card, skewers, straws, rubber bands, plastic bags, newspapers, pipe cleaners, rope, aluminium foil, sticks, packaging material, paper, plastics, craft materials, the use of everything in the classroom. Tools: scissors, glue, tape, ruler, pencil, painter's tape, duct tape, weighing scales, egg shakers (musical instrument), eggs (each in a sealed sandwich bag), cleaning materials, rubbish bag (optional: craft knife, glue gun).
Προετοιμασία
Build examples to improve your own understanding of potential issues for the students, prepare materials, find a good spot to drop the eggs from a height within the school grounds, inform the school community of when the experiment will take place.
Στόχοι, μηνύματα, έννοιες
Συγεκεκριμένοι στόχοι
- To learn what materials and structures provide maximum projection.
- To learn from peers as well as one’s own development.
- To be able to form a hypothesis to predict the likely outcome of the experiment.
Συγκεκριμένα μηνύματα
- There are different possible solutions to the same problem.
- Different solutions each have their own strengths.
- It can be hard to predict an outcome. Theory and experience are used to form a hypothesis.
- Failure is a valuable part of the experimentation process and improves understanding.
Βασικοί όροι
- gravity
- air cushion
- springs
- shock absorption
- structure
- impact
Πρακτικές και Δεξιότητες
Πρακτικές STEM
- Αιτιολόγηση και σχεδιασμός λύσεων
- Τεκμηριωμένη υπεράσπιση επιχειρηματολογίας
- Άντληση, αξιολόγηση και επικοινωνία πληροφοριών
- Διατύπωση ερωτημάτων και προσδιορισμός προβλημάτων
- Προετοιμασία και διεξαγωγή έρευνας
Προσωπικές δεξιότητες
- Αντιμετώπιση της αβεβαιότητας
- Εκμάθηση μέσω της αποτυχίας στο πλαίσιο της εκπαίδευσης
- Ομαδικό πνεύμα και συνεργασία
Δεξιότητες διαχείρισης
- Προσχεδιασμός
- Αξιοποίηση πόρων
Δράση
step 1
Recap learning from Learning Unit 3 about gravity, how to slow down a fall, and how to absorb the shock of a landing.
step 2
Present the challenge - how to drop an egg without breaking it. Discuss what to take into account (i.e. weight, stability, slowing down a fall, air currents). The most important requirement is for the egg to remain intact. To add an extra level of challenge, the ‘egg protector’ should also be as light as possible. The final design will be weighed before the drop and the lightest device to save an egg wins.
step 3
Discuss ideas for protecting a falling object from damage on impact.
- Show and discuss the materials available to make the ‘egg protector’. What is it? More importantly, what can it be? (Don’t hand them out yet).
- Start with a sketch/design on paper.
- Recap health and safety considerations for equipment such as hot glue and craft knives.
step 4
Hand out the egg shakers and start the building process of the protector, using the iterative design process to test, evaluate and improve the design.
- Use an egg shaker for testing rather than a real egg.
- Encourage different approaches to the design. Students should try out different solutions and try to combine them.
- They should use the scientific method learnt in the previous unit to make sure they have accurate data to help form a hypothesis and make predictions (i.e. constant = dropping from the same height).
step 5
Stop work for a plenary to check progress – sharing, testing and feedback:
- Each group should show how their ‘egg protector’ is made, how it works, what materials they used, what choices they made, what problems they had to solve to teach each other what they have learnt. When giving each other feedback, students should critically discuss the plans: see where the strengths or weaknesses of the idea manifest.
- Name the real eggs and weigh the protectors using scales (write it down for later).
- Test the designs outside the classroom to a location where you can safely drop them from a height such as a bridge or roof garden.
- Students will place a real egg into their ‘egg protector’, then drop them one at a time preferably from a height of 3-5 meters (clean up between each drop if needed).
- Discuss the outcome between each drop. Discuss what actually happened and why? Did it do what was predicted? Cherish the eggs that survived!
step 6
Back in the classroom, make an inventory of each group and their egg. Share the results on a scoreboard, recording egg name, weight and result using this symbol system: a fried egg indicates that the egg was completely broken, a whole egg with a crack in it indicates that the egg was broken, but still kept its shape, an unbroken egg indicates the challenge was a success.
step 7
The winner is the group with an unbroken egg and the lightest protector.
step 8
Within the results, evaluate which aspects of each design were good ideas and which ones were less successful. As students don’t always understand all the skills they have used to accomplish the assignment, name the skills they used explicitly and give positive feedback.