Demolition and Construction meet Science

This week was very exciting!  In  the NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), which California will be adopting in 2017 officially, put a large emphasis on students exploring and creating their own scientific experiences.  One of the standards in the physical sciences area for second grade is for students to disassemble something and then take the removed pieces to create a new object.  The class was using old non-functioning small appliances as their machinery to disassemble.  One group had a toaster oven, one group had a bread machine, and the last group had a printer.
On Wednesday afternoon we had our demolition day!  We did discuss that we were not trying to break things, but DISASSEMBLE them.  The classroom literally sounded like a construction zone, with screwdrivers being used as screwdrivers and also occasionally as hammers or chisels.  (I might be needing to get my husband a few new screwdrivers to replace the ones that got really buggered up --- but it was SO WORTH IT!)  Check out some of the disassembling.

 

On Thursday afternoon, the students had 10 more minutes to finish disassembling their machines.  After pieces had been removed, the students wrote in their science journals about the pieces they took off of their machines.  Then as a group the students discussed, decided, and created new items.  While the new items are not "working" items, it was great to see the students get so excited about building something new using old pieces.

The bread machine became a television.  The toaster oven became a house.  The printer became a drawing machine, with an included pencil holder.

 

 

 

This was such an amazing experience.  I  absolutely loved doing this student-led activity because the kids were the ones driving where this experiment actually ended.  Many thanks to Beth McKenna from betterlesson.com with her inspiring base for my own version of this lesson in my own classroom. This was my first year doing this lesson and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am hoping to continue this experiment in future years and would like to request if you have any old NON-WORKING small appliances at home, I will happily take them off of your hands... all for the sake of science!

Stay dry and have a great weekend!