June 20, 2016 -- Science is all around us.
Most students learn that fact when they’re studying how meteorologists forecast weather or how the phone in their pocket connects to a satellite or how the food they consume impacts their bodies. But Mr. Marty Javorek’s eighth graders at Roxboro Middle School learned it when studying the mechanics of swings and slides and roller coasters.
That’s right: playgrounds are science. Mr. Javorek’s students spent about a month this spring working alone or with a partner to design a working model of a playground or amusement park using their knowledge of simple machines and force and motion. Students were guided by a rubric listing fourteen items that ranged from a pulley, incline plane and wedge to demonstrations of rolling friction, balanced force and Newton’s Laws.
Though Javorek has been doing this project for ten years, the required items on his list sometimes change to fit the state science standards. “I used to require my students to use electricity, but now that’s covered in a different grade,” he said.
Some class time was devoted to the project, but students also worked on it at home. No pre-made items, such as Legos, were allowed and Javorek encouraged students to “raid their junk drawers,” insisting that no one need buy anything to complete their project. “I’ve seen playgrounds that were made entirely out of string and sticks, but that met every single criteria.”
Once the playgrounds were complete, students made presentations to their classmates to demonstrate how each of their items worked, showing how a wedge makes a teeter-totter move up and down, or how a merry-go-round embodies Newton’s Laws of Motion.
For Javorek’s teenage students, the assignment brought back the joys of swinging, sliding and playing. Khalia Dabney said it’s hard for her “to just sit and learn out of a textbook and worksheet.” “The way we did this was fun,” Khalia said. “We got to use our imaginations.”
Diajah Johnson agreed. “I’m more of a hands-on person. It’s actually interesting to learn about stuff when you’re making it work yourself.”
Students created everything from traditional playgrounds to water parks to a light-up putt-putt course. Victoria Hagan thought it was “cool to be able to test it out and show all the different kinds of forces actually working.”
Playgrounds aren’t the only things these eighth graders are building. Javorek uses Science Olympiad prompts with all the students in his classes, four times throughout the year. In spring, they’re challenged to build the lightest possible wooden bridge that can hold 15 kilograms of weight.
Seventh grade science teacher Mitch Smith lays the foundation for this project when his students build a bridge following the same blueprint. In eighth grade, the students work with partners to design their own blueprint, drawing it to scale on drafting paper before constructing the actual bridge and testing its strength.
The “testing station” involves suspending the bridge over the edges of two buckets and hanging weights off the bottom, adding one kilogram at a time. One partner adds the weights while the other videos using an iPad, both watching eagerly from behind their safety goggles. The video documentation helps students identify and fix the flaws in their initial design.
Students need to apply all they’ve learned about the properties of compression and tension, as well as engineering. They also have to apply good old-fashioned trial and error. Though two weeks away from the June 1 Test Day, many pairs had already tried the strength of their bridges only to have them fall apart.
Jonah May, whose bridge shattered with just two kilograms of weight attached, was practical: “We thought this would happen. We might shave down the wood a bit to make it lighter and then build another.”
Azhur Husain couldn't help but think of this project when he drove over a bridge recently with his family. “It made me feel a little nervous because I saw how mine fell apart. But it does give me a new appreciation for people who build bridges.”
Julia Androsko is putting her faith in those experts: “This project actually makes me feel more confident when I drive over a bridge because I know they’re doing a better job than I am.”