We've been exploring motion together in the classroom as we've developed experiments to answer questions such as "Does the size of a piece of paper change how quickly it falls?", "Does an object roll the same distance on different surfaces?", and "Does the height from which we drop a ball have anything to do with how high it bounces?" Questions such as these have helped us learn the power of carefully planning out experiments in which only one variable is changed. These experiments have also allowed us to revisit key mathematical skills such as measurement and finding the median value (the middle value of a set of numbers).
Today the kids are coming home with instructions for a project they'll do at home that parallels the work we've been doing in the classroom. Each of them have identified a question they want to test at home with you. They've also started the process of listing all the materials they'll need and the procedures they think they'll need to follow to carry out their experiment. Your job is to look over this with them, make any necessary revisions, and supervise their experiment. The experiment itself (and subsequent data collection) shouldn't take much more than 30 minutes or so. Once they have their data collected they'll need to create a project board/poster to share with us. These need to be completed by May 10th as we will begin presenting them on that date. Below is an example of what their board might look like. They need to include: (1) Research question, (2) Materials, (3) Procedures, (4) Data from the experiment and a (5) Conclusion explaining what they think they learned. They can do this on a poster board, tri-fold project board or Google Slide. They can include a bar graph if they would like but are not required to.
Past classroom kids have really enjoyed doing these experiments, creating the board and then sharing it with their friends. I'm excited to see what everyone brings in. As always, if you have any questions just let me know!
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