Rocket Powered!
2/1/2019
Last week we also had our annual Brown Bag celebration. Students are encouraged to come up and show off any talent they might have. It can be daunting standing up in front of your peers and being the center of attention and requires courage and confidence in yourself to be able to perform. However, Madeleine was brave enough to get on stage and demonstrate her skills with a recorder. At PNA we strive to encourage students to take risks and grow. We aim to have students go from 'I'm too scared to try' to, ' still might be scared but I'm going to have a go anyway and I will be supported if I make a mistake.' Students also were given the opportunity to learn about another person who took risks and who encouraged the country as a whole to grow during our annual MLK Jr. assembly and day of service. They can see how having confidence and belief in yourself not only allows you to accomplish great things but also encourages those around you as well. Back in the classroom as part of our current project on Space we have been discussing gravity and how astronauts get to the international space station. We watched an exciting video of astronauts on the ISS and the launch of a space shuttle and discussed how it has to overcome gravity to escape into space. When I suggested we conduct our own experiments and make our own chemical reactions to cause explosions to defeat gravity and make our own rockets to launch there was a lot of enthusiasm. But first we had to collect bottles to use and design and then create our own Bottle Rockets! After we had made our bottle rockets the next step was to gather the ingredients we needed to make our chemical reaction and explosion that would allow us to defeat gravity! For this experiment we used white vinegar and baking soda. The class was tasked with determining the best ratios to use to get their rocket the highest. Would more vinegar get it higher? Or more powder? Was it best to fill the whole bottle or only half or only a little bit of vinegar? How fast does the chemical reaction take place? How tight do we want to plug the opening? These were all questions we asked and tested. The first few attempts unfortunately did not get the best results we wanted, but the more we tested and tried different things the better results we got. We nearly managed to get one stuck on the school roof! Unfortunately I did not manage to get a video of the experiment as I as busy getting covered in vinegar! However, kudos to Alexandra who took on the challenge of being fast enough to create her own 'powder bomb', put it in the vinegar, put the rubber stopper in and turn it over ready to launch all before the chemical reaction took place and vinegar exploded all over her. We definitely had a lot of fun and learned something in the process. The 4th and 5th graders were also very impressed and wanted to stay and watch us setting off our rockets rather then go back to class! Comments are closed.
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Hali TuomiMs. Tuomi has over five years experience in ASD, where she taught first and fifth grade classrooms. An avid skier, Ms. Tuomi is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Alaska Pacific University’s Bachelor of Arts in K-8 Education. Archives
April 2021
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