For the entire quarter the students have been learning about constructive and destructive forces in science. One of the big ideas the students also explore is how humans and technology can impact these forces. As a culminating unit project to enhance student learning about human and technological interventions, as well as the engineering and design process, the students created and tested a model levee.
To kick off the project the students watched this video, which was created by a childhood friend of Mrs. Whitesell.
After that they were presented with the problem they needed to solve and then did some research on levees to increase their knowledge and understanding of how they are built and how they work. Once research was complete the students each drew up two different levee designs. Each group member shared his/her design ideas and collaborated to choose/create one design to use to build their group levee model. The students had sand, gravel, a plastic bag, craft sticks, cotton balls, and duct tape available to use to create the levee. Once the levee was created each group tested their levee to see how much water it would hold before it was breached. Part of the engineering and design process is improve your design, so after testing it once the students made improvements to their levees and then tested them again. Finally the students reflected in writing about their designs and the effectiveness of their levees. It was a super fun and busy day! It was "Stem"tastic, "Stem"errific, and "Stem"azing! Check out these photos!