Science – A Floor, But Not a Ceiling

Yes, if you are a current parent in our school, you know that we celebrated “Innovation Day” before we celebrated Purim, but my blog has flipped the order. (I really wanted to get my Purim post out before Purim.) That does not mean that we didn’t have an AMAZING “Innovation Day” worth sharing more broadly with our community. The opposite…we had a GREAT day.

I want to be super clear and name that not only did I have virtually nothing to do with the planning and facilitation of this day, I also had virtually nothing to do with the documentation of this day as well. It is my pleasure to use my blog to showcase the work of those who did.

The primary drivers of Innovation Day at OJCS were Josh Ray, who serves as our Makerspace Lead and Middle School Science Teacher, and our Lower School Science Teachers. Everything that you are going to see below is the fruit of their labours – with photo collages captured by Lianna Krantzberg, who dabbles in social while serving as our Student Life Lead. Together with other special events such as Global Maker Day, the JNF Hackathon, the Global Student Showcase, along with regularly scheduled lessons in our Makerspace, Innovation Day shows how OJCS serves as an incubator of innovation for it students (and teachers!).

So. What was this day all about?

Grade 8 – Simple Machines Project

We often say that doing something with a machine requires less work. In this design challenge, you will be responsible for helping design a new sled for students at OJCS to use. Using as many of the six simple machines you learned about in class, your task is to use the design thinking process to design, test, and build a simple machine sled prototype that students can safely use. You will give your innovative sled a name and create a pitch to market your sled to potential investors. May the best sled win!

Your Goal: Working on your own or with a partner, decide which simple machines will be part of your sled design. After researching the six different types of simple machines and realistic DIY sled builds, create a plan for your prototype. Determine what materials you will need and the size and quantity of materials. You may use any materials from home and supplement any other necessary materials from Home Depot. Then, plan how you will proceed. All sections will be presented as part of a 5-minute product pitch that must include the following 5 sections (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test). The pitch will include all information displayed on a tri-fold board presented in front of investors (judges) and will be graded based on the judging rubric.

Grade 7 – Animal Structures Project

All animals, like people, require shelter to protect them from the harsh elements of nature as well as predators. In this design challenge, you will take on the role of an engineer and be responsible for helping design an innovative structure for an animal of your choosing. Using the information about stability, forces, symmetry, and structure types you learned about in class, your task is to use the design thinking process to design a new shelter prototype that animals can safely use using the CoSpaces VR program. You will give your innovative shelter a name and create a pitch to market your structure to potential investors. May the best structure win!

Your Goal: Working on your own or with a partner, decide which animal you would like to build a house/shelter for. After researching stability, forces, symmetry, and structure types as well as the current animal shelters for your chosen animal on the market, you will create a plan for your prototype. Using the Five Freedoms as a guide, determine what structure type you are going to construct, what materials your structure will need, and what strategies you will use to provide stability. You will also need to determine what forces (internal/external) your structure will need to withstand and describe what techniques you used to provide strength and avoid structural failure. You will include this information in your structure design using the virtual reality CoSpaces program for potential investors to see. All sections of the Design Thinking Process will be presented as part of a 5-minute product pitch that must include the following 5 sections (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test). The pitch will include all information displayed on a tri-fold board presented in front of investors (judges) and will be graded based on the judging rubric.

Grade 6 – Electricity Project

Your Goal: In this project, you will build a series circuit that lights a bulb using a power source and conducting wires. Then predict what will happen to the brightness of your bulb if you add more bulbs or batteries to your series circuit, and test your prediction.

All sections will be presented as part of a Google Slides (or equivalent) presentation with each slide representing each step in the Scientific Method.

Grade 5

Using the design thinking framework, the students answered the question: How can we provide electricity to community outdoor spaces in an energy efficient way that still maintains the safety and “fun” aesthetic of the space?

Grade 4

Grade 3

We have jumped right into our Strong and Stable Structures unit in preparation for Innovation Day: 1.) Assess effects on society and the environment of strong and stable structures. 2.) Assess the environmental impact of structures built by various animals, including structures built by humans.

We worked with Marshmallows and Toothpicks to learn about strong shapes and building strong structures!
We have taken the information we learned from this activity and applied it to the designing and building of newspaper bridges!

Will the bridges be able to hold up THREE heavy textbooks!?

Grade 2

Grade One

Students are keeping busy with their projects for Innovation Day. They are really putting in the effort, collaborating and designing their projects to make them the best they can be. Building something from scratch can be a real challenge, but it’s also a great opportunity to learn new skills and collaborate with others.

Kindergarten

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to join us for Innovation Day in KA and KB on Wednesday!! The students worked so hard to create their flying machines and to learn about the 4 forces of flight. They were so proud to share what they had learned and created with you. You can watch and listen to the “What Makes Airplanes Fly?” song here and check out the pictures of the process of creating and testing their bamboo helicopters, hovercrafts, and hoop gliders…

Junior Kindergarten

A huge ‘kol ha’kavod’ to JK for their first innovation day! What a fun morning! Thank you to all of our guests for popping in to experiment with us!

Leading up to this morning, JK was heavily invested in learning about what makes objects sink or float. They learned about density, and even conducted an eggsperiment – no, wait, an experiment – to change the density of water so that an object that sank (an egg haha) was now able to float! Check out the booklets your children brought home in their backpacks to re-create the experiment at home! Their main challenge was to build a popsicle stick raft to get their dinosaur across the water table. As the joke goes… Why did the dinosaur cross the river? To get to the other side.

Did our students have an amazing day putting all their passion, talent, knowledge and creativity to good use?

I’d say “yes” – this was a great day of learning at OJCS!

One of my great joys over the last six (!) years has been watching the evolution from “Science Fair” to “STEM” to “STEAM” to “Innovation Day”. Each iteration has brought our school – and our students – closer to a high dream of fusing science benchmarks with STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Mathematics) standards with Makerspace skills all blended together with creativity, student voice and presentation rubrics to become this thing that we now call “Innovation Day”.

However, we might as well have called it #OJCSNorthStarsDay since a day like this reaches so close to so many of them…

…”We learn better together”? We sure did today as, for many, collaboration was the key to innovation.

…”We own our own learning”? Students had lots of opportunities for choice-making which inspired their creativity.

…”A floor, but no ceiling”? The sky was the limit as to how high they chose to aspire.

…”Ruach”? Did they have fun? Check out the smiles below and tell me.

The primary drivers of Innovation Day at OJCS were Josh Ray, who serves as our Makerspace Lead and Middle School Science Teacher, and our Lower School Science Teachers. Everything that you are going to see below is the fruit of their labours – with photo collages captured by Staci Zemlak-Kenter, who dabbles in social while serving as our Development Director. Together with Global Maker Day and the regularly scheduled lessons in our Makerspace, Innovation Day shows how OJCS serves as an incubator of innovation for it students (and teachers!).

So. What was this day all about?

In a nutshell…this:

Grade 8 – Simple Machines Project

We often say that doing something with a machine requires less work. In this design challenge, you will be responsible for helping upgrade the gymnasium and physical education programming here at OJCS. Using your knowledge of simple machines, your task is to use the design thinking process to design, test, and build a simple machine prototype that enhances our physical education curriculum.

Your Goal: Working on your own or in a group, decide which simple machine game or project template you will use to build your project. After researching the six different types of simple machines, create a plan for your prototype. Determine what materials you will need and, the size and quantity of materials. Then, plan how you will proceed. All sections will be presented as part of a 5 section (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test) presentation to be displayed on a tri-fold board and presented in front of judges.

Grade 7 – Filtration Project

You are now working for the Clean Water Environmental Engineering Company and have been asked to design a new water filtration system for a small community with a polluted water supply. First, the company is going to look at different types of filter material to determine which ones work well. Then each group in the company will design a filtering system to clean up the polluted water.

Your Goal: In this hands-on project, you will investigate different filtering methods for removing pollutants from a dirty water mechanical mixture. You will design, build and test your own water filters.

Grade 6 – Electricity Project

Grade 5