Day 1:
Materials:
paper cup
paper clips
two straws
6 pieces of string
tape
and on Day 1 and only day one, a trash bag. Not one egg cracked, which to some might seem a success, but we realized that providing a trash bag made the experiment full proof, too easy and provided no challenge to the children.
Day 2: We changed the trash bags out for smaller sandwich bags. This time the experiments were a FAILURE!!! Everyone of the eggs broke, and not one contraption floated to the ground, but rather crashed at top speeds. oops! Bad teachers :) (it was kind of funny though and definitely entertaining)
Day 3 and everyday after wards: We substituted for the trash bags/ sandwich bags, newspaper and a balloon. We decided to give the children both a balloon a newspaper to give them more opportunity to be creative and to see what they did with both materials.
My kids never used the newspaper as a floating device. They always used the balloon regardless of my insisting that there was a reason we gave them the newspaper, after which they would often tear the newspaper up into shreds to cushion their egg. Not exactly what I had in mind, but ok, it was their experiment, not mine and their future broken egg, not mine. And hopefully they learned more from the failure and the success of others from the other classes.
This contraption used the balloon as a covering device, rather than the flotation device, and used nothing to help it float down to the bottom. Needless to say their egg was DESTROYED in the crash.
One of the cracked eggs after it's non successful fall.while the second one is a great example of how a balloon by itself will not help slow the fall of the egg enough to keep it from crashing.
It was a great class that both the teachers and the students enjoyed immensely. I hope we find an excuse to do this again another day. What would you have done to save your egg if you were in this class?
Hola... I thought I would share an ancient ninja secret that I learned a long time ago...
ReplyDeleteit is called "floating egg bird"
I will put a diagram up. you use sturdy white paper for the large circle. cut a egg sized hole in the center and then use same paper type to create long cone with point on the bottom. use tape to hold the two together. Insert egg in center of cone..make sure it is snug... drop paper... it will float to ground and upon impact the bottom of cone will crunch a bit protecting the egg and then fall to side where circle will protect it as long as the egg doesn't fall out.. (snug remember?) and there you have it... I'll put it on my blog. willrutledge.blogspot.com
it works I promise.. you might have to play with the proportions on the paper.
adios,
will/billy
haha looks like that was a lot of fun. i dont know, my egg would definately have broken!
ReplyDeleteOh hey... I looked into your skype issue... if you sign up for a gmail account (free) they have a new video feature. You and kyle both need gmail accounts... not sure if it is international friendly... but it is an alternative... the other way to chat is to have kyle get a vonage account and send you the little plug in box. you hook that up to the internet and it is like making a local call.. (b/c you will have an American number. Thats more a long term solution though.. as he is coming soon then you might not need to pay for vonage... but I thought I would offer some help.
ReplyDeletetake care,
billy
That looks like tons of fun!
ReplyDeleteI am a teacher too, and our 6th graders love the egg drop!
ReplyDeleteHave you ever done the earthworm races? Big piece of craft paper with a large circle in the middle. Lay it on the grass. Put a worm for each student in the middle. They can't touch the worms, but they can shake the paper gently and pound the ground to see which will move out of the circle first.