PARACHUTES
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We need suggestions on Parachutes (redesigning an activity). We did it yesterday
as part of a 2 day workshop with teachers (grades 4-10). Day 1 was Ice Balloons
and it went incredibly well. They all seemed to appreciate the value of intriguing
materials, the chance to mess about, and the importance of generating your own
questions. They sorted questions, 'turned questions' and did mini investigations.
The discussions were wonderful. They said that going through the process got
them excited and gave them the questioning skills and confidence they need to
try student-directed (inquiry) activities in their classrooms. They seemed to
'get it'! Day 2 was parachutes. We suggested that they could use ice balloons
as a model. They worked through the activity (establish criteria, review the
list of criteria, do the activity, evaluate it, and redesign it) in teams of
3. During the redesign they kept busy discussing, building, and testing ideas
and parachutes. When we all got together for the final discussion we were stunned
to hear ALL the groups say that they thought the activity was pretty good as
it is! They would start with the guided activity, (maybe leave off the explanation),
and then let the kids generate questions after that. They felt that it fulfilled
their criteria and those on the list we handed out. They resisted our suggestions
of opening it up at the beginning (they lamented: scheduling, giving up control,
not enough time, materials, etc, etc, etc,). Are we unreasonable to be discouraged
that they were all playing it so safe and traditional? We were surprised and
disappointed because they had spoken so well to the value of student-led investigations
after ice balloons. Now they were all very content to frame the experience and
pose the initial question. Some of them do very little hands-on now, so are we
asking too much? But some are the science specialists in their schools and we
had hoped for more risk taking from them! Have others had similar experiences?
Could it be influenced by the way the activity is presented, similar to peoples
reaction to Foam: the order that they first did it in often seems to be the best
to them? In this workshop experience we gave them: messing about first with ice
balloons and for parachutes it is guided, then opportunity to mess about. Does
anyone think that having a group discussion about what they've identified as
the most important criteria for an "inquiry"
experience BEFORE they do the parachute activity, evaluation, and redesign would
NOT be a good idea? There are so many criteria on the sheet that deal with hands-on
rather than the key elements to inquiry. I guess we want to try to 'guide and
direct' them to our way of thinking (#2,13, and 14 are primary in my mind)! Is
this wrong? Am I being narrow minded? We are doing this workshop again on Mon
and Tues. with another set of teachers. Any comments or suggestions would be
welcome. Thanks, Denise LeBlanc and Jill Foster Science Discovery Museum
Denise LeBlanc
and Jill Foster
Acton, MA USA - Friday, January 08, 1999 at 12:18:12 (PST)
Internet. I
am planning an inquiry workshop and decided to use parachute design
as my vehicle. I searched the web for background information and
found this site. Terrific!
Adela
J. Dziekanowski
Chatham, NJ USA - Thursday, June 25, 1998 at 22:41:20 (PDT)
this is really
interesting that you can do all of this stuff over the internet.
cheryl
weiner
york, pa USA - Thursday, January 29, 1998 at 10:24:05 (PST)
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