Toys from Trash

On Wednesday, 11/20/13, we had 22 kids show up at our Workshop! A pretty significant increase from 6 kids the week before. Earlier in the week, I had the pleasure of visiting with Mission Science Workshop's incredibly talented & awesome instructors Sam Haynor & Aaron Martin, who both gave me plenty of fun ideas to share with students. First I observed Aaron show a class of first graders about solids, liquids and gases. I didn't realize how many cool ways there are to experience states of matter - the kids & I really enjoyed the lesson. Afterwards, I sat down with Sam who gave me idea after idea after idea for fantastically fun science experiments and observations. I could've watched that blue ice cube melt into little blue blobs sliding through oil for a lot longer...except Sam started showing me all the toys you can make from stuff like straws, cardboard, plastic bags - whatever's around; my favorite being the straw oboe, which pales by comparison to the one Mr. Gupta demonstrates in his TED talk embedded below. Sam had recently visited with Arvind Gupta in India to learn first hand of his gift for making science learning materials out of anything you have on hand. Sam also shared a very empowering philosophy; he doesn't answer student's questions, but encourages them to make their observations. He said if you tell a curious student the answer, they become satiated and may feel like they've mastered that idea so they stop investigating further.
Fresh with a few new ideas, I devoted our Workshop to making 'toys from trash'. Out of a few plastic bags, string, tape and cardboard, some very cool catapult parachutes were made - which were excellent to watch as the kids launched them through the wind tube.