Week of January 3-6

This week, our third graders were environmental engineers hired by Mayor Higgins of Greentown to investigate problems with animals and plants dying in the pond and garden. We used pH strips to test soil and water samples from various locations around town and compared this data to data taken three years ago. We noticed that some areas had become much more acidic, causing problems in the pond, while other areas had become more basic, causing harm to the garden. We then made visits to the locations in question to learn more about what was going on. Now we are working on making recommendations to Mayor Higgins about how to solve these problems and prevent future problems with the ecosystem in Greentown.

samples we tested with pH strips

In 4th grade, we learned a lot more about how the programming blocks work. We learned that making the power negative moves the robot backwards. Some groups began learning about the various types of turns the robot can make by adjusting the power of the left and right motors. Now they are working on programming the robot to move through an obstacle course using these turns.

In 5th grade, we discussed how some inventions (like the flushing toilet) were invented way ahead of their time, and they didn't have the supporting technology to make them really useful. We made a tech web to show all of the supporting technology necessary to make Gorilla Glass and other inventions successful, and we realized that many of these webs included electricity as a necessary supporting technology. We then did a little research about electromagents and how they are used in inventions and created our own electromagnet!

We found that when we wrapped the wire around the nail more times, it became stronger and could pick up more objects-like in this pic!