Today, Southwark worked on building their own chain reactions. We followed the lesson plan previously posted, and it went pretty well. They worked on this in pairs and were able to work through the problems and difficulties together. Almost all of them got theirs to work after a couple tries. The main issue was that the ping pong balls we used were too light to create enough of an effect. If the students needed more force, we had them come up with ideas like raising their ramps, using heavier objects, or just adjusting the positions of their project. The 2nd class especially had a lot of fun with this. They continued working on this, experimenting and adding on, even when we left. I think it’s a lot of fun when we are able to build things and experiment. Students are able to learn so much more when they have the opportunity to teach themselves!
