Mrs. Henderson's STEAM Class: 3rd Grade: Pendulums

This week in STEM, 3rd graders continued their exploration into force by engineering pendulums. To begin our lesson students logged onto their padlet wall and were promoted to watch two short videos and take notes/write down questions on their worksheet. Here is a link to our wall: Pendulums (last week when students had finished their work they were prompted to draw what they thought a pendulum was so you may notice some student artwork posted below the video links, take a look!)

Once students had watched the videos I allowed a few minutes for students to turn and talk with their peers so they could discuss their notes/questions. We then regrouped and I answered any unanswered questions.

To begin the engineering process students were placed into small groups and instructed to design a pendulum using all the materials that were going to be given to them without seeing them. I have found that if I show students their supplies or an example beforehand it limits their creativity and they tend to copy the example.

MISSION: Design a pendulum using ALL of the following materials: Ruler, ball, tape, and string.

Students had to list the steps they were going to take and draw their prototype with accurate measurements and labels.

During our next meeting students went right into building and testing their pendulums. Students had to complete a lab sheet along with their experiment.