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In Your Classroom: "Dangerous Science"
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Like many who watched this segment, I remember home chemistry kits of the kind described. I did not have a chance to experiment with them as I was the youngest in my family and the kit belonged to the oldest. By the time I was old enough to explore the kit's box, its contents had long been depleted during many exciting scientific and engineering explorations. I add engineering here because at least in my family, the goal was not to answer a scientific question, the goal was to make something cool, make something happen. Whether the goal be science or engineering, the chemistry kit was now just a box with shelves used to store other things. Its contents may have been depleted, but the spirit of science and engineering exploration was not. I turned my attention to other things that were at hand -- like building with popsicle sticks, LEGO and lincoln logs. With neighborhood friends, we made model cars and wooden forts. We built tennis ball cannons, took apart bikes and built go-carts. While we did not have the old home chemistry kits, we still embraced the spirit of exploration promised by those kits. The only difference was that our exploration was not as neatly stored in a box and sold in a store.
The same is true for classrooms. As this "WIRED Science" segment represents, teachers do not have access to some very exciting tools that were once available to teach science lessons. When I replaced the 35+ year veteran physics teacher at my current school, he regaled me with stories of classroom activities that would not be sanctioned today. Take his ballistics lab for instance. Need I say more? Does that mean that the same spirit of exploration that has inspired discovery during all of human history is gone? Of course not. We turn our attention to other opportunities. We assess benefits and risks. We consult with our administration, our student's parents, and the local community. Then we work with the students to dream up some really cool projects. What I present here are some example projects from my first decade of teaching. Are these ideal projects in every sense? Of course not. They represent my early efforts of bringing the spirit of authentic scientific and engineering exploration into my curriculum. As I reflect on these past projects, I think about the balance between safety, learning, and engagement. I hope the depictions of these projects are useful to you as you design valuable learning experiences for your students.
Egg Launch
The excitement of any egg project is that the potential for a fantastic mess is only a fragile shell away from happening. So protecting the egg is a very engaging challenge and one that many students experience in the form of the classic egg drop project. Not wanting to duplicate what my own physics students had done in freshman physical science, and not wanting to duplicate water bottle rocket egg projects, I designed a slingshot device to add a "launch" before the "drop." Students, therefore, needed to design their egg holders to not only ensure the egg's survival but to also deliver the egg as far as possible down field. As they designed their systems, they needed to factor in several design constraints. Their containers needed to:
a.) fit in the pouch of the slingshot
b.) survive the initial positive acceleration
c.) minimize aerodynamic drag so that the egg traveled far
d.) survive the final negative acceleration of landing
One thing that was interesting about this project was watching the risks the students take as I changed the grading scheme. In the years that I assigned strict points for each design constraint, the students did not take many risks. All of their solutions were very similar. In years that I allowed for some choice with the grading (students created the point scheme to emphasize some design constraints more than others), I saw a great deal of originality and risk-taking. And this is the spirit of exploration encouraged by the chemistry kits. Try something and see what happens. So, where is the "dangerous science" in this project? It is not so much dangerous as adventurous. We took an already good activity that many students had done before and we made it fresh, made it exciting. We made it an adventure and it was exciting to see the number of students rise to the challenge of this sort of learning adventure.
Rockets and Animation
My adventure with home made Estes Rockets came from a mentor teacher, Tray Sleeper in Dover, New Hampshire. Tray gave to me a wooden dowel (see picture to the right) that is the exact size of an Estes rocket engine.
With some hot glue, tape, straws, manila folder, paper clips and some scrap paper, my students and I proceeded to build simple paper rockets and use them as a lab exercise for measuring the speed and acceleration of a rapidly moving object. As is depicted in the video above, we used a digital video camera to capture the rocket flight at 30 frames per second. By filming in front of a measured background, we could then determine the distance covered per movie frame. This enabled us to determine the speed and acceleration of the rocket off the launch pad. Students were then able to compare design characteristics such as fin designs, fin placement and cone design.
Like the egg launch, we took a traditional science and technology project -- making and launching rockets -- and turned it into a homemade adventure just like the chemistry experiments depicted in the "WIRED Science" video segment. The danger of working with rockets is managed at the launch site by keeping the students behind a safe barrier, using small engines, paper construction, and launching on a calm day.
The Trail Project
Prior to my teaching career, I worked for many summers with the Adirondack Mountain Club in their Trail Maintenance program. I worked with volunteers and taught them the what,why, and how of fixing trails that traverse the boggy forests and steep mountains of the Northeast. Using only simple but sturdy tools, I taught the volunteers how to move and work with large timbers and rocks using levers and pulleys, friction, tension, compression and a lot of perspiration. Years later, as a physics teacher in Northern New Hampshire, I realized that this would be a very engaging project for my physics students. I contacted our town's conservation group, we identified a trail in need of repair near the school, gained local support through Antioch New England's CoSEED program, built a network of local mentors, and started our work. The video above shows some of what was involved in making the stone stair case out of 300-500 pound rocks.
As the accompanying pictures depict, the students had a hands-on experience with Newton's laws of motion, friction, simple machines, work, power, potential energy, kinetic energy, and the law of conservation of energy. After a few classes out on the trail, they brought their experiences back to the classroom and re-wrote sections of their textbook. The students replaced the object examples provided in the book with the rocks, ropes, levers, and pulleys of their trail project. The assignment encouraged them to read their book critically and rewrite it in a way that was more meaningful to them.
It was a highly successful project that lasted for three years. Each semester, my physics students would spend 3-4 class sessions out on the trail during a 3 week period. Each group contributed a few stairs to the project. By the time we were done, we had repaired a fifty-foot section of a popular walking trail.
Like the egg launch and rocket project, the students needed to be inventive and willing to have a homemade adventure. They need to take some basic ingredients, use their brains, and leap into the unknown. Each group of students worked with a local mentor to help manage safety. They were assigned a rock to move and given some basic tools to work with -- levers, ropes, and pulleys. It was their job to take their earlier lessons on Newton's laws, energy conservation, and simple machines and apply them to the grand challenge of moving a 300-500 pound rock. They had room to try out a great combination of ideas because I emphasized with them that the number one goal was not to build the staircase but to learn physics. There was no rush. This gave them some room to explore and try different ideas out. The end result, after three years and approximately 130 students, was the completion of a stone staircase that is owned by the students. They will be able to proudly come back and show their children and grandchildren their work. I can just hear it now, "When I was in physics, not only did we have to walk up hill to and from school, we had to move 500 pound rocks, too!"
Conclusion
To wrap this up -- I hope that I have shown a few examples of how the spirit of exploration and adventure that used to be found in the old home chemistry kits can still be found today. Safety precautions are a must but through conversations with your students, parents, administrators, community members and school boards, you can manage risk and identify many learning adventures that encourage our students to explore the unknown. We can encourage our students to take the most important kinds of risks -- those involved in moving the wonderful ideas in their minds out into the real world.
Additional WIRED Science Video Segments
Don't forget to check out our Video Section for other segments from WIRED Science that you can use in your classroom.
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