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Exploring Rocket Science
Objective: Children will explore the principles of rocketry and the forces involved in rocket launch.
Engage the children with a trigger; a video of a Space X rocket launch. Ask open-ended questions to gauge their PRK about rockets, e.g. I wonder how it moves/blasts off, what’s the science? Discuss different types of rockets and their purposes. Allow the children time to discuss and try to find an explanation. Elicit the basic principles of rocket propulsion and the forces involved.
Show the children some examples of different rockets; rocket mice, foam rockets, Marvin and Milo’s Penny Rockets and Balloon rockets.
Investigation
Watch the Rocket Mice video:
Divide the class into groups and make rocket mice using paper templates and bottles of various sizes. Encourage investigation through questioning: How high can you make it go? What is making your mouse fly and come back down again? Allow the children to play with the rockets and encourage them to make predictions about their own starter questions; I wonder does the rocket go further if I use a larger bottle or if I squeeze harder. How does changing the force on the rocket affect how far it goes? The children can carry out their investigations using bottles of different sizes. Discuss how pressure inside the bottle makes the contents of the want to escape, and how squeezing the bottle increases the pressure inside.
Ask each group to present their rocket designs to the class. Facilitate a discussion on the principles of rocket propulsion and the forces involved in launching a rocket. Which bottles, large or small sent the mice the highest? Why do you think that was? Was it a fair test? If we had to launch a heavier object what could we do differently? Could we design different types of rockets? What is different/the same as space rockets or fireworks rockets?
Thank you for including the link to the book, Mary. I plan to do loads of investigation and activity with rockets with my class in September, this will be very useful. I’m always on the lookout for good books.
What further steps might you take towards a STEM focused SSE?
I decided to think about how the teaching and learning of STEM could be improved in our school. I tried to think of ways to enhance teaching and learning while elevating the status of STEM in our school.
After an examination of STEM practice in the school by gathering and analysing evidence including teacher reflections, teachers’ and children’s views and ideas and children’s work samples/portfolios, we can get a better picture of where our children and teachers are at in terms of STEM and science skills in particular.
Are children able to apply their science skills to new scenarios? And what is their disposition towards STEM subjects?
I can think of several ideas that could be implemented to enhance the status of STEM in our school among teachers and students.An initial stocktake to ascertain the availability of resources would be useful. Identifying the skills, qualifications, confidence, and disposition of teachers is also a useful step. This could involve conducting surveys, reviewing educational materials, and observing classroom activities. Additionally, seeking input from stakeholders such as parents and students could provide valuable perspectives on areas for improvement.
Having established what we are doing well and identifying areas for improvement we could initiate plans. Ideas like ‘Science Week’ or ‘Space Week’ could be implemented across the whole school and the establishment of a STEM Club or maybe an Astronomy or Space Club could enhance the status of STEM in the school. We could utilise these fora as a space for conducting informal and fun inquiry-based learning. We could maybe, introduce ‘Question of the Week’ to stimulate inquiry-based learning. Children and teachers could conduct investigations and ponder questions. We could make use of the tools and resources identified in our stocktake, not least the resources found in the downloads from this course. Implementing these initiatives would help to support our SSE target of better whole-school integration across the STEM subjects.
I would choose to use the Stars activity set there are some fantastic, interesting activities that my class would love to try out. I can see the activities generating more questions that would require further inquiry.
The activity I’m choosing is the Loo Roll Solar System. As an introduction, I would read The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield. This book is inspired by the childhood of real-life astronaut Chris Hadfield, who overcame his fear of the dark by dreaming of space exploration. I think this book would be a great way to introduce the idea of exploring our Space neighbourhood and consider the distances between the planets in our solar system and the challenges involved in reaching them to explore more deeply.
We could consider how long we think it would take and the type of speeds we would need to travel at to travel to different planets in our solar system. I love the fact that if the planets were placed at the correct distances in relation to the sizes of the fruit, we would need more than 2km of loo roll! I think this fact would really capture the imagination of the children.
After the activity, we could revise our predictions and further discuss the challenges of interplanetary exploration. This could open the door to looking at manned flight versus unmanned probes and some of the exploration missions that have taken place and missions that are planned for the future.I really like how you have considered integration so much with this lesson and set it at an age-appropriate level.
I really like the idea of using station teaching to make learning about the moon accessible and enjoyable for children in infant classes.
Activity set: The Moon
I have chosen The Moon activity set as it is engaging and provides lots of opportunities for active learning and opportunities to examine and investigate space phenomena first-hand. I particularly loved the flour activity where the children used different-sized balls to create craters in flour which resemble the different-sized craters on the surface of the moon. I would use this activity as a starting point to look more closely at the moon and generate further opportunities for discovery.
The moon is an excellent starting point and introduction to astronomy. Its spherical shape reflects the spherical shape of the Earth and the moon is easily observable, especially on September and October mornings. The children could easily observe the changing shape of the moon as it passes through its phases, not to mention that they would enjoy using the telescope to observe the moon daily.
I think that using the moon activity set would provide many opportunities for extension activities and linkage to other areas such as time in maths; the lunar cycle marks the passage of time as a month.
Children are fascinated by the lunar missions and watching them in class would be an enjoyable learning experience. Studying the lunar missions could also lead to even more extension activities, discussing how maths was used and needed to get to the moon, the space race, artwork and designing and making rockets. All of these activities could open up endless questions to explore. We could explore questions of physics, geography, forces, materials, chemistry, an endless list of child-led inquiry-based learning.
Not least we could also examine the moon’s cultural significance around the world, throughout history exploring stories, poetry, myths, legends and songs. As well as the many possibilities for child-led, inquiry-based exploration, the Moon Activity set would offer countless opportunities for cross-curricular linkage and integration.
One inquiry-based learning activity I have done with my class is exploring the force of magnetism. We used magnets to discover whether objects were magnetic or not magnetic. We talked about magnets and magnetism at the beginning of the lesson and predicted whether items would be magnetic or not. I separated the children into groups and they played with the magnets, testing different materials to identify magnetic materials. They sorted the items into categories and reported their findings to the class. We discussed the characteristics of magnetic objects and noted what was similar in each magnetic object; i.e. they were all metal. The children noted that magnets can attract or repel depending on what end of the magnet they pushed against each other. I asked the children if they could think of any practical uses for magnets and we made a list. Then we watched a short video about magnetism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HHs98PBgk0&t=28s
Hi, I’m David, I teach 1st class. My favourite ‘fact’ about space is that it is so mind-blowingly large! The vastness and number and size of different planets, stars and galaxies provokes existentialist thought.
