So despite a week of complaining during which I grew increasingly impatient having to tell Mister to stop complaining, two weekends ago we started the project. The fact that I--ahem--won a third prize in the Detroit-wide science fair project in 8th grade might lead you to believe that I would take over the project to relive the glory days of Ant Colony 1. Indeed, some friends insisted that I would be all over that project and Mister would be playing video games while I set up the multi-media spectacular.
But no. Even though it would often be easier on me to just do things for Mister, I firmly believe that learning to learn is more important than any project or class or grade. Mister was going to do the work on this one and Id help where he could not.
So I ran a topic past Mister's mom and she liked it. It is simple. It is an experiment (no mere volcano for Mister's project!) And I have the tools to set it up. I actually got part of the idea from a physics experiment set I'd bought for Mister several years ago. We could set up an experiment of one marble ramming into another marble and then see how placing different objects between the two marbles affect the energy transferred to the second by the impact.
So last week I gathered the materials: a Hot Wheels track segment. Two small marbles. Some cardboard for building. An old paper box from work. A large marble. A wooden block. An eraser. A magnet. My digital camera. Paper. Some poster board. Tape. And glue. Oh, and a calculator. That's it.
I wrote up a data collection form for Mister to record the data. While I did that I had Mister answer the questions of the experiment format. I carefully did not give him the answers but instead asked him questions to get him to the answer. He did great. Then I build the cardboard ramp while Mister made a centimeter ruler from paper. I taped the ruler down on the track. Then we calibrated the experiment gear by test slamming the marbles and adjusting the height of the far end of the track until the marble rolled down the ruler without going off the end. With that established we got down to the experiment.
I set up the second marble and ramp to make sure the force would be the same for all set-ups. Then Mister rolled the first marble down the ramp, observing the second marble and noting the distance the marble traveled. He took the average and that was the baseline. I took some pictures of the experiment in progress.
Then I taped, in turn, the large marble, the magnet, the eraser, and the wood clock on the track with the second marble touching the intervening object and the ramp up to the object. Mister rolled the marbles three times on each variation and did the math for these rolls. Mister enjoyed doing the experiment, actually, but was relieved when I told him we'd put it together the next weekend.
This last weekend was that weekend. I had Mister take the data and enter it on to the template I'd already made. Then I made a bunch of text boxes with headings corresponding to the steps he was supposed to take in an experiment. Then I had Mister type in his answers that he'd written the week before based on the experiment. This took him a while and I thought of doing it for him but thought better. And he was a trooper. I only made two changes: adding italics to his reference title and turning his results into bullet points.
I cut out the box sides to create a display area and cut the poster board to fit. Then glued the base down and attached the track/ruler and ramp to the display base.
Together we set up an Excel sheet to add the data to make a graph and we learned-by-doing to get labels and the right kind of chart. Mister actually had played with this creating graphs for fun so I didn't feel bad doing most of this step. We printed everything out and then I had Mister cut out the pictures and text boxes.
I laid out the objects on the board and then had Mister glue them on. Then he put his name and grade on it while I added his data sheets and hand-written notes to serve as the proof he indeed did this experiment. Voila!
And then I quizzed Mister on why we did different things and what the results showed us.
So it was a great success. Mister did most of the work and I mostly just did the display construction work and formatting for the typed parts. Mister even liked doing the project, in the end. And then this morning, we carted it off to school for display.
UPDATE: Mister won a first prize blue ribbon for his project. So his project went on display in the main science fair at the middle school and he went on stage at his school to receive his award at the school assembly. I am, needless to say, quite proud.
