Middle School Science - Mr. Vandegrift's Class

Meanwhile, in our middle school science classes, students have annually engaged in a fun challenge wherein they test theories learned about basic physics and engineering. Mr. Vandegrift had previously used this lesson, but had kept it more focused in prior years. This time around he decided to once again use this project, but he converted it to be more design thinking oriented by casting an open ended pathway for students and incorporating some of the design thinking ground rules so that the spirit and process of design thinking was realistically applied.

The design challenge was: how might we build a structure out of 150 toothpicks that weighs less than 10g at completion but will support a significant amount of weight on top of it when it's built?

Students were allowed to build any shape of structure and explore various geometries in their construction to meet the challenge.

I was able to observe the students during the brainstorming phases of their project. There were a lot of great ideas being discussed, and it was great to hear students "plussing" ideas - in other words, rather than everyone tossing out tons of ideas, students methodically listened to their peers completely explain an idea and then the teammates contributed that idea before the group moved to hear another idea. The words "no" or "that's impossible" wasn't heard once!

Also, the "blue sky" thinking during the brainstorming sessions was truly inspiring and fun to watch. Some amazing and new ideas presented themselves, and students dove into deeply exploring and considering these ideas. Out of all the groups I saw, maybe one had what I'd consider to be a "traditional solution" of a basic tower with support beams. Very interesting!

In any event, I noticed that each team ended up with 3 to 4 well articulated brainstorming theories to consider for designing and creating. Something else that made this more fun for students was that Mr. Vandegrift let them roam free during brainstorming, including having them brainstorm on the windows of the classroom. This gave each group some space and also provided a neat visual capturing the process. Here are some photos of the students hard at work brainstorming:

Students post their initial ideas and begin sketching out their thinking on the glass. 

 

Mr. Vandegrift asks some prompting questions about the students' work as they brainstorm. The group on the right was already dabbling in design - looking at the physical possibilities with toothpicks.

This group had some incredibly creative ideas and it was a joy to overhear their collaborative discourse on the different ideas they were considering.