Second graders have recently begun their new (and usually favorite) science unit: Properties of Materials. When I let the class know that we had been contacted by a glue company to help them create a stronger glue for schools they immediately sprang into engineer mode and began to think how we could do this. On day two I had multiple students already coming up to me with ideas from research that they did at home. It was so great to see the excitement out of them!
Throughout this unit students get many chances to participate in hands-on investigations to discover which substances will and will not work to be in our final glue. I love the students' motivation and excitement doing inquiry based units in science. They are so motivated to learn when they have a real life problem they are trying to solve.
So far, through investigation, students have learned how glue engineers observe properties of materials and decide which properties will work for their designs. Here they are observing the properties of mystery materials to try and figure out what is in the bag.
They also created design goals for the glue we will create.
Students have also observed and tested two mystery glues and had to analyze the good and the bad properties of each glue.
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