Grade 5 - Experimental Design and Conquering Towers

While I was away on the Ozark Mountains expedition with Grade 6 the learning did not stop in science class. We are lucky to have Derik Howell as my sub consistently throughout the year and he and I plan the same lessons that I would do if I was in the building. While I was away, the students put our preparatory work around experimental design into practice and completed a class experiment around the effect of size on the distance flown by a paper airplane. They prototyped different design models and selected ten different sized papers. Their conclusions showed that the smallest and largest planes flew the least distance, but there was little variance between their middle sized planes.

Grade 5 also had their first expedition of the year this week.  We headed to Camp Wyman to test our climbing abilities on the high challenge course.  These boys have had a number of tree climbing experiences with me last year and they are quite skilled, but scaling a 45ft tower on a cave ladder definitely tested their mettle.

Prepping for the climb

Teambuilding at it's finest.  Students belaying students.

After the climb we talked about how we can transfer the feeling of overcoming the challenges on the ropes course to putting in the hard work and overcoming challenges in other areas of our lives.  It was a great day and I couldn't be more proud of 5th grade boys!

Big thanks to Ashley Carr and Tom Cordes for chaperoning the event.  I loved when the staff members said to me, "It's pretty cool that all the adults with your group are climbing with the kids.  That's really rare around here."  WE ARE CDS! 

Back at School

Our focus is now squarely on completing experiments surrounding our favorite terrestrial crustaceans... pill bugs!  Technically we are studying pill bugs AND sow bugs, but either way you probably know them as roly-polies.  We started by observing our specimens closely and then completing labeled, technical drawings of them in our STEAM journals.

Now the students are using choice chambers to investigate pill bug preferences like moist vs dry, light vs dark, color preferences, and even calculating the speed of the different species and comparing this to the size of the organism.

The students will be working on their independent investigations over the course of the next two weeks and then creating powerpoint presentations that shares their findings.  They will do a formal presentation of their findings to the class and I will video these and post them on YouTube to share with families.  They have really loved this project so far and I know they will be excited to share all of their experiments with you soon.  Until then!