Blog Week 1

 8/21/23

Big Question: How can we support play that's exciting but not dangerous? How do we make a race exciting between people who run at different speeds?

• Play is a huge part of all elementary classrooms, as kids constantly want to play and explore.  Using safe and exciting play can also be one of the best methods of teaching. To explore these questions we watched videos of the Freeze racing multiple different people. Then we were given charts and supplies to conduct our own experiments to see how to make a race "fair" for people going two different speeds. 
• In lab, my partner and I decided to do one person's heel-to-toe walking speed versus the other's normal walking speed. For this, we found out how fast each person walked ten meters and then gave a late starting time to the person walking at their normal pace, as they would finish quicker. 
• This method worked best for us as other groups found it challenging to find a good late start time because many of their walking speeds only differed by a tenth or so of a second. 
• This is a fun experiment that I think could be easily modified to many aspects of play and would make for an interesting lesson for elementary students.

In Thursday's lecture, we explored the science behind this experiment, as well as the NGSS components of this lesson. First, we identified the science and engineering practices as making observations and measurements to provide evidence. The crosscutting concept found was patterns, and the disciplinary core idea was describing and measuring motion. We explored the science of it more by looking at and creating graphs to represent speed, which is distance over time. I am excited to continue to look at more parts of play and how to incorporate them into engaging lessons for my future students.