Today is final testing day! Teams had about 15 minutes to wrap up any changes that needed to be made. This time, they were in the Penguin Melter 3000™ for 15 minutes instead of ten. The average mass loss was about 3.5 grams, which is improvement over round one.

While the houses were being tested, we watched a video on a real-life solution to the penguin problem.

Tomorrow, teams will finish up their packets and WeVideos.

Today, students tested their prototypes. We had two tests, one near the start of the period and the other near the end. Groups that were ready to go tested first, followed by those that needed the first part of the period for building time. The mass of their penguin ice cubes was recorded before and after the test. The test itself took place in the Penguin Melter 3000™.

Their houses were in here for a total of ten minutes. The average mass loss was about 4 grams, which is pretty good! Teams will figure out what to optimize about their designs before our final test tomorrow.

Welcome back to another week! Today, teams collected their materials and started building! There are a few design requirements:

1. The houses can be no larger than 10x10cm.
2. The house must have a door.

Beyond those, the designs are up to each group. Unused building materials can be exchanged for money or other items, and several groups made changes to their initial designs on paper once they’d started building the real thing. The most common building materials in each class were construction paper and cardboard, with the least popular being cotton. Those reading this will get a little hint, since cotton is actually a great material to use. It mimics the way we insulate our houses in real life when it’s spread out to cover a larger portion of the house. Tomorrow, we’ll start testing prototypes.

Happy Friday! Today, teams started to design their penguin houses.

Teams have access to the above items and a budget of $100 to spend. After completing their designs, each team submitted a notecard with a breakdown of the building materials, amounts, and costs. We’ll start building on Monday!

Today, we started testing the materials students have access to:

Using a heat lamp, students placed a thermometer under each of the materials we’ll be using:

• Construction paper
• Wood sticks
• Cardboard
• Mylar
• Felt
• Aluminum foil
• Cotton
• Foam

They recorded the temperature after three minutes. Students will use this data to start designing their penguin houses tomorrow!

Yesterday, I introduced students to the species of penguin we’ll be looking at as well as shared what problems they’re facing. We have one more thing to do before students can start working on their own designs: we need to review how the three different types of heat transfer work. We learned about conduction, convection, and radiation before break.

While conduction and convection will still be present, the main type of heat transfer students will need to design around is radiation. This models the real-world penguins, who are having to choose between sheltering their eggs from the sun, or themselves. Students sketched how radiation warms up a house, and we brainstormed some ways to insulate houses against heat. Tomorrow, students will start testing building materials.

Today, we met the penguin species we’ll be focusing on. We’ve created a video with the help of the Woodland Park Zoo to introduce these awesome animals. Before we start, I asked students to write down some of the things they already know about penguins.

The video challenges some common assumptions about penguins. Humboldt penguins prefer warmer weather and colder water and live on the western coast of South America. Their habitat is getting too warm, though, and that’s causing them to choose between overheating themselves, or cooling off in the water and leaving their eggs unprotected.

Tomorrow, students will brainstorm some potential shelter ideas, see what materials they’ll have access to, and figure out who they want to work with.

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great winter break! I wanted to ease everyone back into school routines today, so we didn’t dive right into new content. Instead, we started with our usual weekend check-in, but went a longer on account of all the time off. It was great to hear about all the different activities students were up to over the vacation.

Once the weekend check-in was done, we spent some much-needed time reviewing just what we covered prior to break. Students have a habit of forgetting some things after being gone for two weeks. With the help of our warm-up and student volunteers, we summarized the few weeks leading up to break.

This left us with just enough time to introduce the end of unit project and assessment for 6.2: Save the Penguins. Students will be working in groups to build, design, and test a structure that will protect penguins from a heat source. I’ll have more details on the project over the next couple of days. Before we can get started, though, we need to learn about the penguins and what’s happening to their habitat. To do that, students need a basic understanding of climate change. We’ll continue this discussion tomorrow.

We’ll be closing out the year with a movie. It’s a rare thing to watch one in science class, and the students have been working hard for four months. I hope everyone has a restful winter break, and I’m looking forward to diving back in to science in January!

Today was a WeVideo workday. Students had a goal to complete their projects by the end of period today. I’ve already watched some awesome videos!