Experiment: How Much Effort?

"Forces and Machines" is our current unit in Science so we put some process skills to work and did some hypothesizing, predicting, experimenting, and inferring. We wanted to know how the position of the fulcrum affects the amount of effort needed to balance the load? We talked about a seesaw and the challenge of balancing the seesaw when one person is heavier than the other.

To begin our experiment we started with our fulcrum right at the 15cm mark on the ruler. Our "Effort" and "Load" cups each contained ten pennies.

We then altered the location of the fulcrum as you can see by our chart below. We had to add and take away from pennies from our "Effort" cup depending on the location of our fulcrum.

We worked together in groups to complete our experiment with the goal of being careful in our procedures.

Our observations were interestingly varied. However, we did conclude that the position of the fulcrum definitely affected the amount of effort needed to balance the load of pennies. We noticed that when there is more distance between the effort and the fulcrum, less effort is needed. More effort is needed when the distance is shorter. Therefore, if we have a lever to move a heavy object, we should place the fulcrum closer to the object and have more distance between the effort and the fulcrum.

Fraction Action

Numerators and denominators are recent additions to our vocabulary. Several websites have helped us with seeing parts of a whole. We have practiced with various shapes, number lines, and food! Yes, we choose toppings and portions of pizza using our smart board and then we actually ate pizza. Today we practiced some more concepts using our laptops. We have saved them as favorites so we can visit those sites again soon.

It is great to watch the students getting use to the laptops and becoming more independent with the set up each time from our computer cart.

Three Branches of Government

Our class has enjoyed learning about the circumstances in history which led to the writing of the Constitution. We are gaining an appreciation for the immense sacrifices made by the Framers to pen such a document that has stood the test of time for our nation. We took some time today to illustrate our understanding of the three branches of government.

A little bit of construction paper, scissors, glue and neat handwriting ......

Whaaalaaa.......Some great trees to aid us in learning the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches of Government.