GRADE 3

April 2023

We spent some time on the playground and in one of the school yards noticing and wondering about some of the spaces that humans had created for plants. There was a wall garden, an empty flower bed, and some flowerbeds with lots of growth. We discussed which of the areas we might like to work with to improve.

Students continued working on Genius Hour projects of their choosing. Projects included:

• Building a Rubik's cude solver with LEGO robotics

• Building a bird house (e.g., 3D designing and printing a case for the camera, drilling holes)

• Engineering with cardboard to build model houses, play spaces, and video sets

• Building a basketball court out of LEGOs

• Creating hand-drawn animated shorts with iPad and the podcasting booth (e.g., editing, publishing)

• Filming a fairytale with a green screen and props

• Editing an animated story with AI-created characters in Adobe Express

March 2023

We listened to a book about scientist and teacher Charles Henry Turner. He designed experiments to learn about insects. He learned that bees can see color and studied how ants explore areas that are new to them.

Students continued working on Genius Hour projects of their choosing. Projects included:

• Coding a drone

• Building and coding LEGO vehicles for a race and building the race track

• Building a bird house (e.g., sanding, painting)

• Engineering with cardboard to build model houses, play spaces, and video sets

• Building a basketball court out of LEGOs for an animated story

• Creating hand-drawn animated shorts with iPad and the podcasting booth (e.g., editing, recording sound)

• Recording an animated story with AI-created characters in Adobe Express

• Scripting a live action fairytale short film

In class and after school, we used LEGOs and LEGO robotics to create and iterate. In the after school program, mentors in grades 4 and 5 and Mr. Findley supported our learning.

February 2023

We created a simple game in Scratch that involved getting a pollinator to touch a moving flower. We created a "score" variable and checked to see if the pollinator was touching the flower then the score would increase by one.

Students continued working on Genius Hour projects of their choosing. Projects included:

• Building and coding LEGO vehicles for a race and building the race track

• Building a bird house (e.g., researching, measuring, cutting)

• Engineering with carboard to build model houses, play spaces, and video sets

• Building a basketball court out of LEGOs

• Creating hand-drawn animated shorts with iPad and the podcasting booth (e.g., storyboarding)

• Scripting an animated story with AI-created characters in Adobe Express

January 2023

We practiced creating animated stories in Scratch that would show a plant growing. To animate the story, we changed which sprites to show and hide. We also added wait blocks alongside the show and hide commands to ensure that only one sprite would be visible at a time.

Another solution we discovered was to create different costumes for the sprite and then change the costume after waiting a specific amount of time.

We used WeDo 2.0 LEGO kits to build a model of a pollinator and plant. After we built and coded our base models, we modified the design and the code to make it better represent pollination. Most groups decided they wanted the bee to touch pollen part of the flower and stop. They changed the design of the rotating bee arm, the flower, and/or the code.

December 2023

We continued to tinker, test, and iterate with our Rube Goldberg watering devices.

November 2023

We used materials like peg boards, paper towel tubs, marbles, tape, pulleys, wooden downs, cups, toy car ramps, Legos, string, yarn, cotton balls, and cardboard to build Rube Goldberg devices that could knock over a cup of water to water a plant. We brainstormed, tinkered, tested, and iterated with the materials.

October 2023

We brainstormed things we wanted to investigate and/or make that related to our theme, "plants and pollinators." One thing came up as really important: We need to keep our plants watered but students aren’t in the workshop every day. (And we’re also unable to water on weekends and holidays.) So, students in each class suggested we develop an automated watering system. We also brainstormed different plants we'd like to grow—and what might be different about what they might need.

We started one of the projects that students had suggested: Creating 3D printed pots for plants. We discussed a number of things we should consider when designing: how to make a hole in a sold shape in Tinkercad, the size of the pot, holes drainage, how we might personalize our designs, and whether we might add holes for strings to hang a pot.

We began planning another project: Rube Goldberg devices that water plants. We’ve been looking to YouTube and Google Images for inspiration. We’ve been screenshotting ideas and pasting them into Google Slides. We searched YouTube for ideas, copied video links, and embedded the videos into our planning slideshows. 

September 2023

Our theme for the year is “plants and pollinators.” We’ll be planning, carrying out, and sharing science, engineering, and history investigations using digital tools. We began this week by discussing what we think we already know about plants. A few things stood out:

1. In one class, students began to offer things they think plants need to grow (sun, soil, etc.)—and then added “sometimes” as they were talking. I pointed this out and asked if we might think about each thing in terms of “always” or “sometimes.” We’ll try to revisit this often. One student also wondered if mushrooms are plants because they don't seem to need light.

2. In the other class, we discussed whether plants need soil (another “sometimes” discussion). Mr. Smith brought up an example of plants growing in the sidewalk (as an instance with no soil). But then we wondered if there was dirt in the cracks or if the plant is growing through the crack and using the soil below the sidewalk.

After charting what we thought we knew, Mr. Smith asked the class to take what we knew about plants and figure out if harvest corn is a real plant or not. We noticed and wondered. Then, we brainstormed investigation ideas.

We tried a few investigation ideas to figure out if our corn was real or fake:

• When we popped some kernels in a microwave, they didn’t pop open like normal popcorn would but there was the same white center.

• When we put the corn in water for a few days, green sprouts and white roots grew from some kernels. It also smelled really bad and attracted flies. The water appeared to be “dirty.” There was also mold growing on some of the corn we’d put in water.

• We planted some kernels in soil. Green shoots came up, and we could see roots growing in the clear cup. It was clear to us that our harvest corn was a real plant!