A few weeks ago the preps finally had the chance to launch the water bottle rockets they had been working on.
*To provide context this experiment involved the use of a plastic water bottle partially filled with water, a bike pump with a cork attached to the nozzle and a launch pad. The launch demonstrated how for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction (pressure shoots down, bottle shoots up) much like a real rocket.
So here’s what happened:
The preps were divided into groups of 3 or 4 and together they had to come up with a design plan for their rocket. They were required to share their ideas while listening to those of others, take turns to add their ideas to the plan and together make choices on colours, shapes and patterns along with labelling each part. They then had to ‘build’ their rocket with their team. Each team was provided with a bottle to which they added fins, a nose cone and decorated the body of their rocket.
Prior to the big launch day we attempted to launch a trial rocket using a water bottle attached to the pump with a cork (which was a spectacular failure)! This was actually a great outcome as it provided the chance for children to ‘think like scientists’ to make hypotheses as to why it did not work and to experiment with solutions. The children determined that we needed to fix the seal of the bottle as the water was leaking and suggested solutions such as plasticine and blue-tak.
In the meantime the 5/6 neighbourhood leant us their fancy rocket launcher and we decided that this may be a better option considering we needed to launch 18 rockets and so far our cork/pump contraption had been somewhat unreliable!
This experience provided a fantastic opportunity for children to not only develop their understanding of force but for them to practice the skills required for collaborative learning (and it was really fun)!