THE INVESTIGATION CONTINUES...

Today we continued EXPLORING into how to build our ramps.  We looked at the different surfaces we could put on our ramp to make the cars go faster.  There was some very clever thinking happening today.


Caitlin, Darcy, Karys and Ava-Rose came up with a great way to test the different fabrics.  They lay the fabrics over there legs to simulate a ramp and let the car go down.  They could tell by how fast the car traveled down, as to which material they could use on their ramp for Lightning.

Kyle did some great work today too.  He found out that two metre rulers would be 2 metres.  That's the distance that Lightning needs to go.  So he used two rulers to measure the distance and then he started building his ramp.   When the teachers reminded him of the success criteria, that the car needs to go 2 metres from the END of the ramp, Kyle needed to do a re-think.  He decided to move his ramp and rulers down to the floor where he would have more room.  He moved the rulers to the end of his ramp.  Great thinking Kyle!

Now here's some clever thinking...

Benji, Regan and Nathan decided to use the sandpaper to sand down their piece of wood to make it really smooth.  Then they even thought to wipe the dust off with a cloth.   The smooth surface will decrease the amount of friction and allow the car accelerate faster.  How's that for flash thinking!

Devon and Kiara were busy making their ramp today too.  They decided to make it like a bridge.  They noticed that when the car went down the wood, it didn't go down very fast.  The wood was too bumpy and caused the car to slow down and even fall off the edge of the ramp!  So after a quick think, the kids grabbed a piece of cardboard that was nice and smooth to add onto their ramp.

Great problem-solving guys!

During this EXPLORE phase of our investigation, the children were encouraged to keep notes on what they found out.  Here are Ashton and Connor explaining what they have learnt so far...

Maarire and Petra work so well together.  You'll see in this video that although they don't say much there is a lot of thinking and problem-solving going on!

Ben found out about friction today - here is a video of him explaining what he found out.  

(excuse the background noise - it was pack up time!)