the bundles of curiosity, creativity, and chaos
In this unit students are tasked to create a model windmill that can harness wind to complete a task
We start with the story of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. It's a great book to capture how even children, not much older than my fourth graders, can have a huge impact on their community.
Do the work of engineers
Investigating windmill variables
During this design unit, teams were able to test and redesign their blades over several class periods. They experimented with many different variables:
blade materials: construction paper, cardstock, and aluminum foil
- blade shapes: square, round, oval, and rectangular
- blade sizes: small, medium, large
- hub material: clay, styrofoam balls
- hub sizes: small, medium, large
- placement of blades in the hub.
I wanted students to see how changing variables can affect how well the blades rotated. Teams were only allowed to change one variable at a time and record the results of the test.
Each time their model didn't work, I would question them about what could be causing the problem, but I never told them. They have to figure that out for themselves! PROBLEM SOLVING! CRITICAL THINKING!
One of the biggest challenges was the position of the blades, we had to take a look at several fans to determine how the blades were positioned. TILTED TO CATCH (or create) THE WIND!
Another challenge was the wind blowing the blades all the way against the stand. Notice this student was putting his hand on the back of the dowel rod to stop this from happening. They had to come up with a solution to stop this from happening.
Adding a lifting mechanism
The final step to this challenge was to create a lifting mechanism that was powered by the turning of the windmill blades. The lift was required to hold a certain amount of weights and lift all the way to the surface level (level with the base). Lots of trial and error here. Lots of redesigning. Lots of team conflicts!
These students were trying to come up with a solution to the wind pushing their dowel rod backwards.
This design was super cool, but they quickly found out it was too heavy to be lifted by the wind.
This activity started out as a science investigation and ended up being a whole lot of fun!
We started with the question: "At what speed does Sphero knock over the most pins."
Students collected data at different levels of speed and realized that the fastest speed didn't always produce the best outcome.
next it was time to play a game of sphero bowling!
This activity does require a bit of room. We had to utilize ALL of our space!
Students learned the importance of the aim feature! There were no rebowls, only gutter balls if no pins were knocked down.
Students kept up with their score on their scorecard.
want to try this out with your kiddos?
Grab this resource from my store!
Included in the resource:
- Speed Investigation Sheet
- Two Options for Bowling Scorecards
- Canva Presentation which include visuals for setting up the bowling lane and pins
- Teacher tips so you don't repeat my teaching fails!