It has been too long since my last post! Since I last posted, third quarter has flown by and the fourth quarter of the school year is now upon us. A couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite math teachers (by the way, you should check out her AWESOME blog High Heels and No. 2 Pencils) approached me about participating in a cross-curricular lab involving the students on our team. At the time, my classes were just finishing up our unit on kinetic and potential energy and her classes were just beginning their unit on graphing/calculating slope. This created the perfect time for us to combine forces (and classes) to complete the Barbie Bungee Lab!
We decided to make this lab a two-day event with an introduction video to bungee jumping, data collection, and graphing all on day one of the lab! For the second day's grand finale, our school's head custodian (Who is the best!) volunteered to drop Barbie from the roof of the school building for each of our classes!!
This was my first time using the Barbie Bungee lab in my class and it was such a fun experience for myself and for my team's students. During the first day of the lab, we had the students who were in my physical science class, each period, be in charge of tying the slipknot rubber bands to Barbie's ankles, holding/releasing Barbie from the top of the meter stick, and determining how far Barbie dropped each time she was released. Students who were in math, each period, were in charge of recording the measurements from each Barbie drop (we used a "bungee cord" of 7 rubber bands, where each rubber band addition was tested three times), calculating the average of each set of trials, and plotting the data.
Science students dropping Barbie and Math students recording each trial's data.
Barbie in mid-flight!
It is always awesome to see my students fully engaged in a lab!
On the second day of the lab, we decided to start a friendly competition between ourselves and our classes. Before heading outside to the courtyard for the final drop, we taught our students how to calculate the height of the drop using the slope intercept formula (y=mx + b). Our students were then broken into two large teams per class and were challenged to predict how many rubber bands Barbie would need to successfully bungee jump from the roof of the school without hitting her head on the ground and dying. Each team of students were provided with a Barbie and as many rubber bands as they needed for their prediction. We teachers also made a prediction and added rubber bands to our own Barbie.
Looks just like me, right?
Our awesome head custodian, dropping each group's Barbie from the roof. He did this for us each period!
After completing this lab, it is safe to say that we will have to make sure that our lessons are aligned so we can do this lab again with our classes! Our students were able to review elastic potential energy, graphing techniques, and how to use the slope intercept formula. I would call that a success!!
