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:
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.
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 5th graders.
These students have bright futures!
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