Get to the Party Project
Source/Author: Dottie Smay, Lower School Media Specialist
October 06, 2022
Third graders had a STEAM problem to solve in the makerspace this week. Mrs. Smay gave small teams of students an empty cereal box to represent a building, a small pumpkin figure, a ghost figure, and a few standard office supplies. The story they were told was:
Imagine there was a Halloween Party on the 3rd floor of a building (the box) and the stairs were under repair and the elevator was broken. Using only the materials on the table, design something to get the pumpkin and the ghost to the third floor so they can attend the Halloween Party.
This lesson was done as a precursor to learning about simple machines. Many students determined they needed a pulley system of some sort to get the pumpkin and ghost to "the party." One group recognized they needed to stabilize their box so it would not fall over while working. Students also needed to find a way to connect the pumpkin to their apparatus, since it did not have a hanging device like the ghost did.
They worked together, re-designed and problem solved. They listened to each other's ideas and presented their final design as a team for their peers.
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