As part of our recent Science unit all about Forces and Motion, students recently were given a design challenge and needed to work collaboratively to solve the following problem:

Problem:  A local sports store, “Eggsactly Sports”, is needing new ideas to help improve their line of protective gear such as helmets. They are looking to young, innovative kids to help design inexpensive protection that could inspire the store to make new gear.

Solution: Design safety equipment that will protect your egg from a drop of at least 3 m.

Each group’s design was innovative and well thought out. I was SO impressed! Students used a variety of materials some of which included:

• cotton balls
• tin foil
• a cushion
• balloons
• Kleenex
• Kleenex box
• parachute
• paper roll
• styrofoam

We recruited some help from Mrs. Chapman to be the “tester” and with Mr. Ritchie involved as well, each team’s design was dropped from the roof of the school to the pavement below.

Students looked on anxiously to see what happened as a result. Did the egg survive the fall? Did the design function the way it was intended?

Take a look at the collection of 5 videos from all teams along with some pictures:

 

In class, we watched the videos to reflect on what we noticed or heard with each drop. They were asked to think about what they would change or keep the same if they had to do it again. Was our prediction accurate?

Three out of the 5 groups did not have their egg break. There was 1 egg broken and 1 was cracked.

Overall, we had fun building and testing our designs!

 

If you were to do this experiment, what type of materials

would you use?

 

As a culminating project to our Rocks & Minerals unit, students worked hard to research a famous rock structure of their choosing.

The students chose to research the following structures:

• Zuma Rock (Africa)
• The White Desert (Egypt)
• Giant’s Causeway (Ireland)
• Flowerpot Island (Tobermory, Ontario Canada)
• Ayers Rock (Australia)
• Twelve Apostles (Australia)
• The Wave (Arizona, U.S.A)

There are so many beautiful rock structures in our own country and around the world. Congratulations to the two young ladies who won the National Geographic Kids contest for best pamphlet! Sylvia Jane from California was so pleased to meet you and present your awards!

All projects were proudly displayed at our Parent Conference Night and students took them home to share their hard work with their families. Bravo Grade 3s!

Do YOU have a rock structure you’d like to know

more about? Is there a rock structure you’d

like to visit?

Miss Robyn, a gemologist from Nash Jewellers, came to visit us on Monday to talk about minerals. What is a rock? What is a mineral?

Students loved exploring all of the samples she brought in.

She encouraged us to feel everything, examine, and investigate what was there. There were so many beautiful colours and shapes we could look at. Some things were smooth, others were bumpy. Some of us found our birthstones!

Robyn taught us about what properties a mineral has:

• has to be inorganic (not living)
• is a solid
• is naturally formed in the Earth
• has a crystal structure
• has a specific chemical composition (Robyn called it a recipe)

We learned how different minerals can have different colours because of ‘trace elements’ or impurities such as iron or magnesium. Robyn taught us about some of the different families of minerals such as:

• Quartz family–Quartz is a very abundant mineral. Amethyst is a type of quartz and is purple. Citrine is yellow quartz.

• Beryl family–Emeralds are part of this family. Emerald is green because of trace elements of chromium. Aquamarine is another example. It is blue.

• Corundum family–Sapphires are part of the corundum family. Did you know that sapphires come in every colour except red? When it is red, it is called a ruby. A ruby is also part of the corundum family.
  

Robyn talked briefly about diamonds. They are the hardest mineral on earth. A lot of mining for diamonds occurs in Northern Canada at Snap Lake. Canada follows strict labour and safety laws when it comes to mining. Below is a picture of Ekati Diamond Mine in Northwest Territories. “Ekati” means Fat Lake. The rings you see inside the holes are roads.

 

Do you have questions about rocks or minerals or mining?

What is your birthstone?

 

 

 

 

Do mountains last forever? This was the questions students in our class have been investigating over the last 2 days.

Students explored how solid rock breaks apart into smaller pieces through a process called weathering. We learned terms like ‘root wedging’ and ‘ice wedging’ and how the cracks in rocks allows for seeds and water to get trapped inside, eventually causing the crack to widen and crack the rock into smaller pieces.

Students modeled the process of weathering that occurs when rocks tumble and crash into each other using sugar cubes in a container. Each group of students shook a container of sugar cubes approximately 200 times and more!

We hypothesized what we thought our sugar cubes would look like after shaking the containers. We drew pictures and recorded observations as we worked through many trials of shaking. We took turns with our partner so we both had turns shaking the sugar cubes.

Take a look at what happened after the sugar cubes were taken out of the container! (One of the sugar cubes was left out as a comparison). Do you notice how the edges of the sugar cube became smoothed out and the cube turned into a sphere?

This is what happens when rocks tumble down hills and mountains. With wet weather and when you add friction, rocks eventually will break down into smaller pieces and may show smoother surfaces at the bottoms of mountains. See below.

What do you wonder about rocks? Have you ever found a really smooth rock and wondered how it became smooth? What is the most interesting rock you’ve found?