The past two weeks we have had a lot of exploration time. Each day we have a guided exploration and then some time for free exploration.
Our guided explorations have been around the concepts of Force. We have been looking at Balanced vs. Unbalanced forces and we explored the idea of Air Resistance.
Students had a chance to build a boat out of Tin Foil. The first challenge was to create something that would float, the second challenge was to see whose boat could hold the most weight.
Some of the boats held up to 100 plastic tiles!
Students learned that an object floats when the weight of an object is equal to the upward force of the water. They also reaslized that they needed to equally distribute the weight in their boats or the boat would tip one way or the other (like in a canoe).
Later in the week we explored the idea of Air Resistance. We watched a quick video about air resistance and then we used the same concepts to create paper airplanes that would glide well ( created with a wide surface to catch the air).
Here is a link to the video we watched and some photos of a successful paper airplane that was folded.
When students were reflecting on their learning many commented that “science experiments are fun” and “learning about force is interesting because you can play with it.”
It was also great to see students working together to problem solve and to share their understanding of force to help others develop new plans.