CFB World Record STEM

CFB attempted to break a world record of the most students completing a science project at once.  My first grade students at Blanton Elementary were so excited about completing the science experiment.  In order to achieve the goal the district gave specific instructions.  At precisely 10:00 the principal came on the loudspeaker to tell the students to begin making a portrait of yourself on a piece of paper.

Students were told they could use what median they wanted.    They had a choice between markers, pencils, or crayons. 

Many chose a combination of pencil and smelly markers.

Their Science Journals were ready to take notes and and write down ideas.

 After student's finished their class portrait we took a photograph of their creativity.  I asked them to make a speech bubble of what they enjoyed about Science and Math.

 Next it was time to fold their portrait into a paper airplane.

Students had seen a video  CFB had created to teach about the science behind paper airplanes.  

The children felt exuberant with their design and couldn't wait to try it.

So we went outside to see which plane flew the farthest.  Students stood in a row on the same line so the measurement could be accurate.

We used the force of our muscles to throw our airplanes so they flew in the air.

  The large square boxes helped us to see who the winner was.   We used our understanding of fractions to tell where we stood in the box.   Some student's airplane flew one half of the box.  Another student's airplane flew three fourth's of a box.  The person who came in second place stood at three squares and one half.  The winner's airplane flew six squares long.  We used our knowledge of comparison problems and found the difference between the two lengths.  Do you know what the answer is?  It was three and one half difference.  

We decided to try to test the paper airplanes at a more sheltered place from the wind to see if there were different results.  The airplanes flew farther because there was less wind.

It was fun watching the airplanes flying in the air.  

We came inside to research with our ipads more interesting topics about airplanes.  One student had done a Science Fair Project about the different designs of the paper airplanes and how they influenced how the airplane traveled.

Another student was interested in different types of airplanes and used her creativity to draw her own original two dimensional design with hearts on the wings.  She might be a future pilot some day.

Two students drew a diagram of how their airplane traveled through the air on this special day of beating the world's record. 

Some students wrote a wonderful How To Paper about the steps it takes to make a paper airplane. 

 She used her writing skills from the How To Unit taught in language arts.

We felt proud of our class posters and wanted to share them with other students.  It was a special day of learning and having fun at the same time.