Last week I had the pleasure of working like a scientist. I was apart of a design team of rising 5th and 6th graders. We worked on designing things that would “cheat air” as we studied, “How Things Fall.” We had 4 challenges. The first was to build a better book support using only index cards, paper clips, and rubber bands. The second challenge was to control the way water fell so that we could get as many drops of water on the head of a penny as possible. The next challenge was to design a toy helicopter for a cereal company that would fall as slowly as possible as it twirled in the air. The last challenge was to design a parachute that fell slowly.

To complete these challenges we worked together. We offered ideas on how to improve our ideas in meetings called Solution Briefings. We took each others ideas to make the best product we could that met the criteria set under the constraints we had to work in. When we developed a final product we held an Investigation Expo to explain to other scientists what we had done. My group won second place in the whirligig contest. It hovered and twirled over three seconds in the air!