Kearney Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) Program: 2013

The 5th graders submitted a proposal for Burns and McDonnell's Battle of the Brains Competition. It was an excellent learning experience for the students. They worked very hard on the proposal and video.

Here is their Sketch-Up drawing of the exhibit:

Here is their video:

Here is their proposal:

Water: Our Greatest Resource

Water is an important resource and we need to protect it, so it’s important to teach younger kids about water’s importance. Our exhibit features six interactive activities all surrounded by walls of water to symbolize how water is all around us. People will enter our exhibit by walking through a floor to ceiling aquarium. Then they will enter the main exhibit room with rushing water flowing behind plexiglass walls. Our first activity will let people experience the water cycle like never before in the 4D water cycle dome. See how the power of water moves boats in the boat racing arena. Feel the explosive power of water when you pump up a geyser. In the drought corner, feel the heat and imagine how you would survive in a world without water. Be a part of the revolution to stop water pollution, and discover how much water is in your body.

In the 4-D water cycle dome, people will learn what it’s truly like to be a part of the water cycle as if they were a water droplet. First, about six people go in and sit down. Next, the 4-D movie of the water cycle starts. Then, it starts to get a little humid. You see that you are in a river flowing out to the ocean. Now, you’re in the ocean and it starts to get hotter like you are evaporating and you see that you are rising out of the ocean. Next, you’re up in the sky and it’s a little chilly, but you’ll see an amazing view of the sunset and you would also see that it’s getting darker. Now it’s stormy, lightning flashes, and thunder crashes. All of a sudden it’s very humid, the wind starts blowing, on the screen it looks like you’re falling. Finally, you fall back into the stream and the movie ends. The questions are “How does the water cycle work?” and “How important is the water cycle to us?”

In the water pollution section of the exhibit, people will learn about the importance of keeping the water clean and how water pollution affects humans and animals. Our exhibit will look like a polluted lake full of trash. The lake will be sitting on a platform. Beside the lake there will be motorized claws that people use joysticks to control the claws and pick up trash to clean the lake. Your goal is to get all of the trash out of the lake. Beside the lake, there is a wall that tells you about water pollution and how it impacts animals and humans. Our big question is “How does water pollution impact humans, animals, and the environment?”

This next activity is all about the power of water illustrated by boat racing. One person will pull a lever and a dam wall will go down. Water will rush out and push the three boats to the other side. The water will drain through a drain and turntables will turn the boats around. Another child will pull the other lever and the same thing will happen. This whole thing is happening on a table. There are pipes under the table taking the water back to the dam. The children will learn about the power of water. The power of water can move boats and also make electricity. A question the kids will be asked is “How can we us the power of water?”

This activity is about geysers. This geyser activity is a plexiglass box that you can pump air into to make a geyser. It’s an air tight chamber inside of a glass box connected to a PVC pipe. What you do is you pump air into a refillable airtight box halfway full of water. Then a pressure gage measures the amount of pressure in the box. When the pressure gets just right, you can turn a knob and a hatch opens under the water and all the air wants to come out so the water gets pushed out of the PVC pipe. For decoration the activity will have rocks covering the pipes and chamber. After the water comes out, it slides back into the chamber. If you’re wondering how the water can get back in the chamber, it has a screw on lid that can screw itself back and forth. The big question is “How do geysers work?”

The next activity is to figure out how much water is in your body. What this activity looks like is just two scales and two calculators. What you do is you weigh yourself and put that number in the calculator. Next, you divide that number by ten. Then, multiply that number by seven. That’s the weight of all the water in your body because our resources said that our bodies are 70% water. If you forget all those steps there will be a sign with directions. The major question is “How much water is in your body?”

Welcome to the Interactive Drought Education Area (IDEA). This area has a large TV, walls, and floors that look like a drought, and two speakers next to the TV. You will touch somewhere on the TV (large world map) and it will have a picture of what that town looks like today. It will explain which state, town, and country you touched and how much rainfall it gets in a year. You will learn about what a drought is, what causes a drought, and what droughts cause. The two big questions you will try to answer are “What would happen if the world had no water?” and “How do droughts impact people?”

The idea for these activities and our main idea of water came up on the bus to Science City while we were brainstorming. When we got back from the trip, we shared our ideas and discussed them. Then, we voted and water won the vote. This water exhibit will remain relevant in the future because water is our greatest resource. Life would not exist without water because our crops die without it causing animals and humans to die because of lack of food and water. In the future the water cycle activity will still be accurate because throughout history the water cycle has never changed. Our bodies will always be made out of and need water. Water is a topic for all ages, so everyone will enjoy and understand our exhibit.

VIRTUAL COMPONENT

We present to you, judges of Battle of the Brains, the Science City Water App. Our app will update with the current amount of rainfall based on where you are. You can also tap on another part of the world and see the amount of rainfall and how big of a drought that part of the world is in. There are also some games you can play. You can play through the water cycle as a water droplet, take a quiz about droughts and pump a handle on your screen to power a virtual geyser that shoots water. Last, but not least, you can move a joystick on your screen to move a robotic arm and pick up trash in a lake. Our app is the next best thing to going to Science City.

CONSTRUCTABILITY

We worked hard to make sure that our exhibit is safe, durable, and within the budget of $300,000. Our exhibit is safe because there will be plexiglass covering any open water so kids can’t fall in or splash water all over themselves or other people. So when they pick up trash in the lake they won’t be able to jump in the lake or reach out to grab any trash. Also, when the kids pump up a geyser, it will be shielded by plexiglass so they don’t get splashed. Plexiglass is very durable. It isn’t like regular glass because it doesn’t need to be replaced a lot and if you or a bunch of kids bang on it, it won’t break. Plexiglass is just like plastic, it doesn’t break like glass and it’s even stronger then plastic.

Materials Lists (All items are from Amazon unless noted)

Exhibit walls and ceiling: 23 plexiglass panels 12’x12’ ($184) Total: $184

Boat Racing: 8 pipes ($24.40), 6 drains ($60), 3 plastic 10 inch toy boats ($24), 2 levers ($16.60), 1 kit screws and bolts ($7.62), 1 large table ($90 @ School Outfitters), 4 knobs ($17.20), 4 cubbies ($20), 6 turntables ($48), 2 plastic strips ($30 @ Interstate Plastic), 4 hinges ($14), 5 plexiglass panels 12’x12’ ($40) Total: $391.82

4-D Water Cycle Dome: 3 Zoomed Automatic Misting Machines ($243.08), 1 Geodesic screen dome kit ($6,125), 3 pairs Sony SS B 1,000 5-1/4 Speakers ($204), 1 Optimas 303 SV993,000 ansi lumens projector ($395.99), 1 Soleus air ph3-12R-03 portable ac-heater ($408.24),4 Eliminator lighting strobes and strobe lights ($49.06) Total: $7,026.92

Pollution Lake: 1 Table ($37.97 @ Walmart.com), 5 Water Bottles (Recycled), 5 Aluminum Cans (Recycled), 5 Plastic Bags (Recycled), 1 Brown, Red, and Green package of Food Coloring ($4.99 @ Target), 1 Can Motor Oil ($3.99 @ O’Reilly), 1 Fake Lake Kit ($2,208 @ PondSupply.com), 88 Bags of Rocks ($1,760 @ Home Depot), 4 Star Wars Darth Vader Robotic Arm ($119.96 @ toystories.wizardworld.com), 4 Logitech Extreme 3-D Pro Joysticks ($111.96) Total: $4,246.87

Interactive Drought Education Area (IDEA): 1 Smart board sized touch TV (includes speakers) ($3,350 @ touchwindow.com), 1 Wall Design ($55.80 @ Designyourwall.com), 1 Floor Design ($392 @ Pixersize.com) Total: $3,797.85

Geyser: 1 Air Hand Pump ($10 @ Harborfreight.com), Hexagon Acrylic Aquarium ($560.99 @ Petsmart.com), 1 ½ inch by 10 ft. PVC pipe ($1.76 @ HomeDepot.com), 20 bolts ($5.44 @ HomeDepot.com), 2 Curved PVC pipes ($20 @ HomeDepot.com), 1 40 pound bag of rocks ($20 @ HomeDepot.com), 1 Valve ($8.50 @ HomeDepot.com), 1 Geyser Map (Free Google Images), 1 Air-tight Container ($60 @ HomeDepot.com), 1 Pressured gage (air) ($5 @ HomeDepot.com), 1 Sign with Geyser Facts ($17 @ Vistaprint.com) Total: $711.70

Water Weight: 2 Scales ($47.22), 2 Large Calculators ($13.80 @ Walmart.com), 1 Poster Board ($1 @ Michaels), 2 Signs with Directions ($30 @ Vistaprint.com), 20 pack of bolts ($15.44 @ HomeDepot.com) Total: $62.02

ESTIMATED TOTAL COST FOR MATERIALS: $16,421.18 (This estimate does not include construction expenses, maintenance, or the cost of water.)

STUDENT INVOLVEMENT

During our brainstorming session we came up with lots of great ideas. Some of the ideas we came up with were water, wind/airboat, antigravity, light reflection, and brain. We didn’t choose airboat because we all thought it was too similar to the hamster wheel because you would walk to move the airboat. You had to walk to move the hamster wheel to, it was just too similar. We also didn’t choose the antigravity chamber because we didn’t think we would be able to defy gravity. We also thought it would cost too much money and go over the budget. None of us knew how to defy gravity so the antigravity chamber just wouldn’t work. The next considered topic was light reflection. We thought light reflection would show how the light bounces off objects. Light reflection wasn’t chosen because we didn’t think it would be interesting for long periods of time. Also it never fit in any of the three categories. Now it really just came down to the topics of Water and Brain. The reason we didn’t choose Brain was that we thought it would be too hard to understand for the smaller kids and the other activities had more hands on activities.

There are lots of different water jobs that involve STEM. Some STEM water jobs are an aquarist and a marine engineer. An aquarist will be needed to maintain the aquarium wall at the entrance to our exhibit. Our topic which is water relates to many STEM jobs that anyone can pursue in the future if they get the right degree.

RESOURCES

Nadeau, Isaac. Learning About the Water Cycle with Graphic Organizers. New York: PowerKids Press, 2005.

Park, Louise. Natural Disasters: Droughts. North Mankato: Smart Apple Media, 2008.

Stefanow, Jennifer. Polluted Waters. Chicago: Raintree Publishing, 2005.

Brainpop. 2013. 19 September 2013. http://www.brainpop.com/

“STEM Careers.” CI-WATER. 19 September 2013. http://ci-water.org/stem_careers.html

Ultimate Visual Dictionary. New York: Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Inc., 1994.

Note from their teacher:

This is an amazing group of students and I am thankful I had the opportunity to go through this process with them! They impressed me in so many ways. They maintained positive attitudes when faced with challenges and time constraints. They showed maturity and the ability to work together far beyond the capabilities of most 5^th graders. These students have bright futures!

We started our day with a detailed, behind-the-scenes tour of HyVee in Liberty. We learned a lot about how they make some of the food and how they stock other foods. We also learned about nutrition and the NuVal system. Here are some pictures from our tour:

We learned how they proof dough, make rolls, and bake bread in the bakery area.

We got to pet one of the live lobsters. We learned that lobsters can only survive for 24 hours out of water. Lobsters gain 1 pound every 7 years, so a 10 pound lobster is 70 years old!

This is the refrigerator where they stock the milk and juices.

It was Veteran's Day and HyVee was offering breakfast for the veterans. We saw many veterans including this amazing gentleman who served in World War II. He was gracious enough to pose for a picture with us. We all thanked him for his service to our country.

We traveled north to Lathrop to tour the family-owned Mule Barn Berry Farm. We learned all about how the farm started and how they work hard to produce blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries. It was very interesting to learn about the different growing methods and the tools they use on the farm. They also let us sample some of their homemade blackberry jam. Yum!

That is a groundhog radish that they plant near their strawberry plants. They use it for aeration in the soil and nutrients.

We learned about the irrigation system. They use water from the lake in the background to irrigate their crops.

They keep bees to help with pollination. The bees were pretty quiet since it was so cold!

This is a long tunnel that is under construction. It will soon be wrapped in plastic. The strawberry plants are planted in coconut husks instead of soil to help with food safety.