CFWT Mini-Grants for Teachers Story: Post Elementary

A Post Elementary teacher funded a “Book It-Science” project for her 5th-grade students with a Mini-Grant for Teachers from the Community Foundation of West Texas. Students in 5th grade learn about force and motion, which the teacher reported is a TEK students struggle with each year.

The Post Elementary teacher explained the project writing:

“We read and discussed the book, 'After the Fall' (How Humpty Dumpty Got Back Up Again) by Dan Santat. After discussing the book, students were asked to design an egg-drop contraption that would protect the egg when dropped from a large height. Students used the engineering design process to plan, design, and execute their egg-drop contraption. After they completed their egg-drop activity, students reflected on what did and did not work. Once students had reflected on what did and did not work, students were able to redesign their project, and we dropped eggs again to see if their redesign worked or not. This project lead us into our unit discussion about forces and motion that they saw within the experiment. We also used the experiment to talk about the different variables that students are responsible for knowing. Students enjoyed the project and were able to refer back to it numerous times during the year when discussing variables or force and motion.”

These activities gave students the opportunity to problem solve and use higher-level thinking skills to answer questions. To donate to the Community Foundation of West Texas and help other teachers incorporate new learning opportunities for their students, use the following link: www.cfwtx.org/give-now.