Caitlyn Thompson - HS Science

My name is Caitlyn Thompson and I am a Physics teacher at New Berlin West. Maker culture is important because it allows students to find new ways to solve real-world problems related to the sciences and engineering.

Provocation: I will design a _____ so that _____ can be protected from a fall.

MAKER PLAN - This Egg Drop project is a modification on an original project I had been doing with students - in the past kids just built a device to protect an egg and completed calculations to show the force upon impact. Now, they had to come up with an authentic problem that the egg represented, and a solution for that problem - their device now had to meet requirements for their solution plans. For example, if they wanted to build a better phone case to protect a phone from a fall, it had to somehow resemble a phone case, with an open face, etc.

We were making for a hypothetical situation of the groups' choice - typically a consumer for a product someone may buy. Physics is so applicable to the real world, and there are many products that are currently being created to avoid large forces during impacts.

The above documents are the instructions and student handout for this project, the rubric that students are able to see for scoring purposes, and the final is a sample of one of the many self-reflections I gave students to rate their progress and participation in the project.

You must plan out the materials and start collecting them early - make sure that you hold true to the amounts that students get and suggest that if they think they want to revise their product for a re-launch, they save some materials for making fixes and changes.

Really trust in the students and try not to help them too much at any point - the most amazing things I saw during this project were the result of students/groups struggling and working through it together!