Crazy Fun Learning...

I think that is a way to describe what we had this week. At the end of last week and on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, the 8th grade science classes had an open-ended inquiry lab--the Egg Drop Challenge! I was really excited about this one when my 8th grade colleague told me that he does it with the students because I can remember doing an egg drop challenge when I was in school! The students were given the challenge to help an egg survive the 20 drop that we have in school from the second floor to the first floor while traveling in a shoebox. One of the catches was that they couldn't put anything inside the shoebox with the egg.
The end of last week was a planning time for the students to identify the challenges they would face and brainstorm possible solutions. In addition to bringing a shoebox from home, the students could also bring in whatever supplies they felt would help them with the challenge. Monday was our first drop day, in which the students collected "control" data--just dropping the box with a "dummy egg" weight inside equivilent to that of an egg. This gave the students an idea of how fast the box falls, and hopefully it would put the idea in their heads that they needed to develop an idea that would slow the descent of the box. After that came development and design testing. The students were able to test out  different ideas on Tuesday (again with the dummy egg), collect data on the drops, and determine which of their ideas they felt would work the best with a real egg. There were a variety of designs, including the traditional parachute approach using plastic shopping bags to the use of mylar balloons attached to the tops of boxes with the hopes of a gentle fall to the floor (not so gentle, but it did work in some cases). Students were also able to cushion the outsides of the boxes to hopefully help reduce the impact force directly to the egg.
Wednesday was Egg Day, so of course I had to throw in some Egg-cellent puns here and there! Overall, it was an egg-citing time and the kids were really into it! Of course, excitement sometimes brings silliness and poor choices...I had to give one of the boys a time out and reminded him that there are ways to have fun with learning without pushing the boundaries. All in all, it was a tiring but enjoyable day! Seeing the excitement on the students' faces when they opened their boxes and found an unbroken egg was fantastic!

Mindfulness thought for the week: Taking responsibility is the first step to taking control.

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