Learning and Teaching

Scienceworks

Last week, the Year 5 and 6 Learning Community visited Scienceworks as part of their Inquiry unit ‘Living Smarter in a Changing World - How Can We Balance Technology, Sustainability, and Human Needs when Designing?’. This unit is a Design and Technology unit so students will be learning about how technology can be used to promote sustainability and improve the way we live.  

As part of the unit, students will learn to understand and follow the design process, including the importance of considering ethical thinking in their decisions. They will develop an understanding of what natural disasters are and explore how humans can take action to manage these events through sustainable practices such as using solar panels. Students will also investigate how technology can be used to enhance and improve our daily lives, and gain an understanding of different materials and their composition.

At Scienceworks, the students were given the opportunity to explore the different exhibits. These included the Sportsworks and Think Ahead exhibitions. 

The workshop each group attended was Roller Coaster Engineer. In the workshop, students design a marble rollercoaster. 

Students experienced:

• Designing rollercoasters, working in groups and using limited resources

• Scaffolded STEM design challenges that help them exercise their creativity, resilience and design thinking

• Fun opportunities to share and celebrate their designs with their peers

Students learnt:

• How rollercoasters work and what makes them move

• The physics of potential energy and kinetic energy

• How forces like gravity and centripetal force control the movements of a rollercoaster

• The design process, including testing and iterating on a design

• Teamwork and collaboration skills

By participating in the designing of the rollercoaster, students experienced using the design process. This learning will transfer over to their learning in the classroom when they are asked to design a smart house within a natural disaster zone.

Deborah Courtney

(Director of Learning and Teaching)