STEM Week: Hedgehogs

For STEM week, Hedgehog class’s challenge was to build a chair for baby bear and make him some more porridge, as part of their topic of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

The project began by looking at different chairs and talking about their similarities and differences. The children evaluated the different ways of using a chair and talked about why they thought Baby Bears chair broke when Goldilocks sat on it.

The children used a ‘tip test’ to investigate how different shapes would react to a change in forces. This was done by the children creating a sphere, cube and triangular prism out of modelling clay and to testing which shape was the most stable.

Once the children had agreed that the shapes with the greatest surface area were the most stable the class went on to decide which shapes could then hold the most load. The children tested out a cylinder, cuboid and triangular prism made out of a single sheet of craft card. We were all amazed to see that the cylinder held 72 books!!

The children then went on to make their own chair for Baby Bear using cylinders. Some children also continued their designs by creating their own chairs at home for their bears (or little brothers!) to test.

Once the chairs were complete, the children used simple tools to prepare Baby Bear’s porridge toppings as well as make some more for him.

The children watched the effects of mixing oats and milk and then the changes that occurred when heat was then applied.

hedgehogs

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