Dear Families,

Here are some pictures taken from last week’s Mad Science session.  Thanks to Martin’s dad for taking such great pictures of our scientists in action!

We have been learning all about earth materials for the last month or so during science.  Last week, we have started our Project Based Learning unit.  I asked our scientists the driving question:  What would be the best earth material for the foundation for a play structure?  Since they have already conducted 4 different experiments on earth materials, the students had many different hypotheses about what earth material would work best.  Most of the class thought CLAY would be the best type of earth material.  Next, the teams of  scientists were given a challenge to design a play structure using just 20 straws and 1/2 stick of modeling clay.  Next week the teams will build the structures and we will test out our theories.

During this project, the students are strengthening their skills in:

• collaboration (working together in teams)
• problem solving ( designing and building the structure)
• creativity ( designing and building the structure)
• engineering ( designing and building the structure)

This is our plan for this week:

• Monday, March 9 ,we will start building our structures at 2:00 p.m.
• Tuesday, March 10 , we will finish our structures starting at 2:40 p.n.
• Wednesday, March 11 we will test the structures starting at 1:00 p.m.

Please join us during any of the above times, just let me know.  There will be no Mad Science on Thursday since we went over our science time allotment for the week!

Wish us luck!

Ms. Wright