Sunday, December 14, 2014
Monday, December 8, 2014
Engineering
After investigating the different properties of sand, humus and clay, we put our knowledge to work to answer this question: What material should the town of Shelburne use to build a sea wall to protect the playground area from the water below. We built models out of sand, humus and clay, put our models outside overnight to expose the walls to the natural conditions, and then simulated the lake water hitting against each wall. We had hypothesized that the clay would hold up and were surprised to find out that the humus held up well too. The sand wall collapsed.
As groups of children constructed the walls, other budding engineers were tackling another building problem. What is the tallest structure you can build with marshmallows and toothpicks? This challenge was harder than we expected. We learned a lot from our experience which we would like to apply to more building projects. Many children wanted to try this at home (dry spaghetti pasta works too). Perhaps there will also be time during the upcoming vacation for more engineering.
As groups of children constructed the walls, other budding engineers were tackling another building problem. What is the tallest structure you can build with marshmallows and toothpicks? This challenge was harder than we expected. We learned a lot from our experience which we would like to apply to more building projects. Many children wanted to try this at home (dry spaghetti pasta works too). Perhaps there will also be time during the upcoming vacation for more engineering.
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