Using everyday toys and toys that they created themselves, students in this first unit of the year got to play with toys and learn important science principles of motion, force, energy, and pressure. Toys such as the Flip-a-Frog, the Ball-and-Cup, cardboard airplanes, and Cartesian divers were assembled and observed closely to understand what forces in nature make them behave the way they do.
A toy that the children built called the Whimmy Diddle, a wooden stick with notches filed into it with a propeller on one end that gets rubbed firmly with another stick, was a striking example of friction and its uses. Newton's three laws of motion were discussed and observed directly with each new toy the class investigated.
Based on what they learned from these experiences with toys on earth, students then predicted how they thought the toys would behave in outer space! All predictions were then checked when the class viewed a video taken by NASA astronauts within the space station. Do you know how a spinning top would behave in space? Do magnetic balls act the same in space as on Earth? What about a bouncing ball? Ask the students from this class!
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