An important part of physical science is the energy. In kindergarten, we explored collisions to learn about energy in hands-on ways. Students used a variety of centers to learn about pushes, pulls, and experience collisions in action. We took a lot of photos and even some slow motion videos of our collisions! Some questions we asked during our explorations were:
- Why do things move when they collide?
- What makes something hard to push or pull?
- Why do things move when they collide?
- What makes something hard to push or pull?
After lots of exploring and connections, students were ready to plan for their models! In their engineering notebooks, they made "blueprints" for their designs. Some of our constraints were that we could only use tape, cardboard strips, paper, and string to build our models with. We also had only one class period (time is always ticking, even for engineers!). After much anticipation building day finally arrived! Students collaborated with partner and used lots of teamwork to create a model to successfully move rocks up an inclined plane! We concluded our model by explaining and sharing our models with our fellow engineer friends. This unit was packed full of critical thinking, collaboration, and learning about physical science.