Students in the 4th grade used the engineering design process to stop leaves from entering the pond during the fall season. Ask: How can we keep leaves from falling into the pond? When we began getting the pond ready for fall, we decided to focus on keeping leaves out of the pond. Imagine & Plan: Everyone imagined possible solutions. We shared our ideas with a partner and the group came up with four project ideas. They were: 1. Scoop leaves with a net. 2. Net cover. 3. Plexiglass. 4. Frame with covering. We voted on what to do, and there was a tie between "scoop the leaves with a net" and "frame with covering." We voted again, and "net" won. We decided to the test the "net" and it did not work as well as we wanted it to. So, we decided to build the frame with a net covering. Create: This is how we built the frame with a covering. First, we agreed on a design as a group. We wanted to build a frame with a net covering. Then we needed to measuer the pond to see how long it is. Evaluate & Improve:
We placed the frame and net covering on the pond and noticed that it did not fit perfectly as we imagined. The next day we checked the pond and found some leaves had gotten into the water. There was a gap between two pieces of net that let the leaves get in the water. So, we took the covering off and tied the gap together. That seemed to help keep leaves out of the water. However, we also noticed that the cover is propped up by rocks, leaving gaps where leaves can get blown under the frame. We haven't fixed that part yet. One more note: the pond covering will not work in a windy climate. Small pieces of mulch blew through the net during a windy storm. We will scoop them out. Students in grades 4 and 5 have been working on ways to take care of our Habitat, improve it and get other students learning outdoors.
Fourth graders are focusing on taking care of our pond. They are researching how to maintain the pond throughout the seasons and had several questions:
Fifth graders decided to work on signage for the Habitat, after noticing that some of the signs are old, out-dated or missing. We hope that you enjoy our video that captures the activities that we were able to complete during the 2019-20 school year. Our CivicTREK project was for students at Cora Kelly to have more time for exploratory learning and experiments. We developed the activities and mentored younger students so they had hands-on learning experiences in the Habitat and in their classrooms.
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AuthorThis blog is written by students at Cora Kelly. Archives
December 2021
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