Objects, Materials and Structures

 To complement our science unit about Objects, Materials and Structures, we had a visiting scientist come in to give us some hands-on experience with structures.

Thank you so much to our parents who came in to help, and our two Grade 8 students from Ms. Harrison's class who came to help as well.

We learned that Structures SUPPORT, CONTAIN, or SPAN.

 

 

We learned how to fasten objects together:

 

 

We sorted different materials. We learned how to describe materials (i.e. that Scott's head is smooth, but Scott's beard is rough)

We learned how engineers make structures stronger by adding triangles to support them:

This was not a very strong structure. I could not support very much weight.

 We added some triangles and it supported more than ten times what it did without the triangles!

 

 We learned that engineers add below the surface of the ground to make structures more stable. The foundations of our houses make them stable. Here, we saw that the longer pilings made a more stable building in the wind.

 Finally, we rolled up many cylinders from newspaper....

And built some stools!

Scott tested them out for us :)

Scientist in Schools is ALWAYS fun!