We had a fun week in the MS classroom, punctuated by our 1st trimester conferences on Friday. (It was great to get to see all of you!)
We continued our focus on geology, plate tectonics, and earthquakes with a lab on rigidity and resiliency of various items. The students demonstrated that elastic rebound is accompanied by dynamic forces as the material snaps back into position.
This related directly to our ongoing Ship the Chip project, in which students are trying to minimize those forces with effective packaging. We will be measuring, weighing, and mailing off those projects on Tuesday(!), and I think everyone is excited to see whether their engineering ideas will succeed.
Finally (and also directly relevant to the project), we worked on physics formulas and problems related to impulse, force, momentum, and acceleration. Since these ideas will largely determine whether their chips will “survive”, it was useful to explore their applications.
I also want to express my appreciation for how effective the MS students were in planning and executing their plans for our “Halloween Festival”. Even though the event had to be moved inside, it ended up super fun and universally appreciated by their younger peers!
(Apologies for the lack of photos - I’ll get back on the ball this week!)