Last week, the 6th graders started their morning reading biographical articles on people considered wise by many. They chose their favorite person and created a poster outlining what made them wise and identifying what type of wisdom they possessed: cognitive wisdom (knowledge/experience,) prosocial wisdom (benevolence/compassion,) and/or reflective wisdom (ability to examine issues and self.)

They then dove deeper into the world of simple machines and how they could used simple machines to develop their mechanical costumes. They worked in stations to learn about the different classes of levers and pulleys, and they experimented with each and how they serve different purposes and provide various levels of mechanical advantage. Students were also able to experiment with small scale materials to create things like a third-class compound lever aka a mechanical multi-jointed finger manipulated by simply pulling a string.

Some students finished the day by helping to set up a slackline during recess, which requires building a double self-locking three-fold purchase pulley system to set up!