Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 2, Engineering Design (Lewis) (1st – 2nd)
Today in Engineering Design, we kept the learning moving! After a quick name game to get to know each other a little more, we jumped into understanding engineering. Students started by exploring connections between the story Javier Builds a Bridge and the Engineering Design Process. We found how Javier asked questions, imagined different ideas for his bridge, planned and created the bridge with his family, and then tested and improved the bridge so that it would be stable and safe.
In literacy time, we read Rosie Revere, Engineer. In this story, Rosie works through the engineering design process, but not without setbacks and misunderstanding the perspectives of others. As we read, we realized that failure doesn’t mean that something is bad, it just means that specific attempt didn’t work. Mistakes and failures lead us to new information. With new information, we can keep trying and make our next attempts better.
In our Science Exploration time today, we experimented with the force of air and connected it to Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We tested with lots of air in the balloon and a little air in the balloon to see how the force of air would make a balloon travel on a string. Here is a link to the experiment we did if you would like to replicate it at home.
https://coolscienceexperimentshq.com/balloon-rocket/
Finally, our class explored how forces impact structures. We built a one-story structure and a tower together. We tested the structures using pushes and pulls (forces) with pencils, weights, rolls of tape, and wind from a fan. As a group, we were able to improve our structures to make them stable and safe, just like civil engineers would do. The students also worked to build their own towers using certain criteria and with the constraints of only using tape, index cards, and string.
We finished up our day with STEAM Stations and then compared the Parthenon versus a tent for stability and safety. Learning about forces and motion will prepare students for the planning process of building their final bridge product on Thursday.
It was a great day!
Mrs. Lewis and Ms. Sharon