Fourth graders in Mrs. Doyle’s class have been immersed in a cross curricular project this week. Combined with their study of Jamestown, and the Force, Motion, Energy unit in science, they are creating catapults. You can keep up with the entire project from her blog: http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/ddoyle, but I thought I would spotlight some aspects of this project from here.
Mrs. Doyle and I began planning a while back, and “backward planning” is the way to go!! She knew what she would be covering in both Social Studies and Science as we started planning, and we were able to incorporate both, plus some math and language arts into this project. Students were given some English money to spend on supplies to build a catapult to help defend the Jamestown fort from Spanish and other attackers. They researched catapults (see her research page from above link) using Youtube videos, some physics games, and some websites about catapults. They designed their catapult on paper before they built it. She had parents come in to be her “craftsmen” who sawed, hot glued, hammered etc. anything that the students needed; for a price of course! The attached photos will show you some of the process. Today, they are testing their creations. Each group had to pick what they wanted their invention to do. Some chose accuracy, others chose distance, etc. They are gathering this data and making changes to their designs as they go. They are blogging with “experts”- an AP Physics class at Freeman High School is working with us on this. The Physics teacher is using this as part of his semester review; for any advice the students give their elementary group; they then have to prove using a formula for their teacher. Blogging will begin on Friday of this week.
As next week progresses; students will be identifying the point of most potential energy, defining how kinetic energy works with their design, and they will be reflecting on what did and didn’t work for them. I am so proud of these students. I will have a link to the entire project in a couple of weeks from the H21Blog.
