Engineering Musical Instruments with First Graders

The first graders have been studying sound. They learned that sound is vibrations that travel through the air to your ear drum. They learned that there are four types of instruments: blowing, plucking or strumming, hitting, and rubbing. They also did some science investigations to learn how to make low and high pitches. Then they applied their knowledge to design and build instruments. Their criteria was that they had to use the materials available in the classroom or in the recycling bin, and their instrument had to be capable of creating at least two different pitches.  These kids are really proud of their work!

Third Graders Present their Bridge Designs to Mr. Paciulli and Ms. Dias

The third graders have been working on designing a wooden bridge to put across the stream in the woods behind the school. This past week they finished testing their bridges, refining them, and then retesting them.  Then they presented their designs to Mr. Paciulli and Ms. Dias.

Bridge Testing

How strong are these bridges?  So far the strongest one held over 3 kg without breaking!

Space Exploration: Lunar Rovers

Dorian and Elijah have been doing some work in preparation for going to the moon. Elijah is designing a lunar rover and Dorian is tasked with determining the best route in terms of time and distance for the rover to take on the moon. Here's the task:

(This task is from nasa.gov.)

By doing many calculations involving the Pythagorean Theorem and rates and graphing, he decided the best location was a little bit more than 11 km north of point P on the map. Along the way he derived the formulas below. In both equations, x represents the distance north of point P. The first equation calculates the total path length from Shackleton to de Gerlache to point B. The second equation calculates the amount of time it would take.  

After doing all that work, he plugged those equations into a graphing calculator to check his work. This is what the graph looked like. The red line is the path distance and the blue line is the total time. The x-axis represents the distance north of point P on the de Gerlache crater. This graph confirmed that the best location to collect rocks would be between 10.6 km and 12.6 km north of point P.

Elijah is currently at work designing the lunar rover. He's been working on a prototype which he is then scaling up to create a plan for building a life-size rover. His first prototype is complete and he is now working on a second prototype.  This is his first prototype along with his technical drawing. 

Here's his next prototype which is still under construction.

Should Pets be Allowed in Public Places? (one 5th grader's opinion)

Should people be aloud to bring their pets into public spaces?

By Mae

Have you ever wanted to bring your pet into a public space even though pets aren’t allowed there? Well before you break a rule, think again! Rules are usually in place for a good cause, and this one sure is! You shouldn’t bring pets into public spaces because of 4 main reasons: allergies, animal-borne diseases, and aggression.

First of all, you should not bring your pet into public spaces because of zoonoses (zoo-NO-sees). Zoonoses are animal to human diseases and are responsible for 2.2 million human deaths a year. Some of these diseases are tapeworms (which can affect your intestines or your brain), hookworm, roundworm, (those two can cause fevers and even blindness in humans) rabies, and cat scratch fever (50% of outdoor cats have this, which can cause fevers in humans.). In fact, 14 million pet-derived illnesses occur each year just in the U.S. You may be okay with taking these risks by getting a pet, but by bringing a pet into a public space, you are putting so many more people at risk.

Secondly, dogs can be aggressive, which can be dangerous for the people around them. In fact 4.5 million people in the U.S. get bit by dogs each year. When animals are scared they sometimes protect people or territory which can lead to biting, barking, nipping, and showing teeth. If they mistake a friendly gesture for a threat some scary things could happen. My dog has acted in this way in the past. For example, when a stranger enters the house she barks and sometimes even nips or jumps up. Also, over 2 million people in the U.S. have zoophobia (the fear of animals). If someone who was terribly afraid of say, dogs, and you bring your canine friend to the supermarket, things could get bad pretty quick.

Lastly, you shouldn’t bring pets into public spaces because it is dangerous for people with allergies. In fact, about one third of people in the united states with allergies of any kind are also allergic to cats and dogs. Even if you think you have a “hypoallergenic” dog or cat, they truly don’t exist. Symptoms of these allergies include but are not limited to: swelling, itching, stuffy nose, puffy eyes, rashes, and asthma. If pets were allowed in public spaces, people with allergies to those animals might not be able to go everywhere they would usually go.

You shouldn’t bring your pet into public spaces because of allergies, zoonoses, and aggression. You might want to bring your pet into public spaces, but think of other people and how it might affect them. So remember, respect other people, and don’t bring pets into public spaces!

Sources I used in the making of this opinion piece:

• Pets Allowed by Patricia Marx
• aafa.org
• Psychologytoday.com
• PetMd.com
• Huffington Post

Should Pets be Allowed in Public Places? (another 5th grader's opinion)

“HUMAN ONLY” Places??

by Wesley

Before you turn away from this whole thing, think about this: Pets can lose brain mass if they are neglected repeatedly for long periods. A smart border collie could become a lazy, food-craving slob. Who would want that to happen to their pet? I believe that being able to bring pets to public places can fix this “Bestial boredom”, and many other problems.

First of all, if people were allowed to bring pets in public places, people with service animals would not have to confirm that their pet is a service animal. Service animals are animals that provide help for people with disabilities. Service Animal laws state that they are allowed to go in public. Proving that your service animal is actually a service animal is a common inconvenience that annoys people strongly, because they have to take out papers or bring up documents on their devices. If pets were allowed to go to more places, people would not have to be inconvenienced.

Secondly, it is risky to leave pets outside.  There have been cases of people dressing up as animal control officers in order to steal pets from yards and parks. Over 2 million pets have been stolen in only ONE year.  “Animals who are consistently and obviously left unmonitored are of course more vulnerable to pet theft (and other abuses), but all unattended animals are potentially at risk.”* Due to these thieves, people cannot leave pets outside for to long unsupervised. Pets can also escape from poles or houses they were left at, and then it will be extremely hard to find them if they don’t have a microchip implant. If pets were allowed to go to more places, we could bring them on errands, so they won’t be left alone tied to a pole or in a back or front yard of a house.

A third reason is that pets can give people something in common, so people would expand their social circle. If you don’t know about fractions and numbers in the hundred-millions yet, just skip this. If you do, get this. There are about 325 million people in the USA right now, and about 144 million of those people own some sort of pet. So, 144 million/325 million people have a chance to make friends because of their pet.  A while ago, my nextdoor neighbor had just moved to town, so we didn’t know her all that well. One day while she was walking her dog, my dog ran out and sniffed the other one’s rear (I always thought that was strange), and me and my sister went out to get our dog, We started talking to her, and then we were friends! If pets were allowed to go to more places, people could make more friends.

Some people say that pets in restaurants are bad, because they can get in the food and give you worms. But to tell you the truth, they aren’t likely to give you worms in your food because they do not sit in the places were the food is made, only where it is eaten. So, that decreases the chances dramattically.

Pets make people happy. Maybe not all, but they make tons of people happy. Little kids (and pets!) get sad to see eachother go. Bringing pets places makes both species happier. Also, there will be a lot less house clean-up after more than 8 hour trips. I’ve had this happen. Whenever I’m writing, I can look down and see the year-old reminder on (and in) the carpet.

*http://aldf.org/resources/advocating-for-animals/pet-theft/

Sources

www.aafa.org/page/pet-dog-cat-allergies.aspx

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/pets-allowed

aldf.org/resources/advocating-for-animals/pet-theft

www.independant.co.uk

What's the difference between fiction and nonfiction?

The kindergarteners are starting some research about penguins.  We need to know what kinds of books to use to find out information so we are learning about the text features in each type of writing.