Every single day, in addition to the planned learning experiences, the kids have multiple experiences just like this. You won’t find this everywhere: a place where kids have the time and space to explore and learn and question in ways that are meaningful to them.
-Athan has shown a lot of interest in building Lego robots and learning about electrical circuits. This on its own is a great example of exploratory science, but he took it a step further by asking if he could make a wind powered boat with a Lego fan he already built.
-He started by finding a boat base that would float - he filled a tub did a sink vs float experiment.
-He found an item that floated nicely and taped his fan to the top. The boat sunk, the battery got wet, and Athan learned he needed a base that could hold more weight.
-To ensure he didn’t get the fan battery wet over and over, Athan figured out that he needed to test the boat with something that weighed the same as the fan. He used a scale and his math skills to balance objects against the weight of his fan and did a sink vs float experiment on the objects he found.
-He found a good container and put it in the tub! Then he put it in the water and observed that the boat tipped over with the fan on it.
-He retested the floating bases with the weights, this time focusing on bases large enough to tape the fan to. The fan fit and the base floated, but even with the fan on the boat didn’t move.
-He figured out that the fan blades needed to be larger to move this heavy boat.
-He found larger fan blades and this time the boat moved around the water bin! He successfully made his wind powered boat!
What Athan thought was just a fun idea for play actually incorporated science, math, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.