Blog Post #1 - Media Literacy

Blog Post #1

As a team, Nourhan, Emilia, and I came up with the idea of making an iBook to help 5th graders transition to middle school. We plan on making small movie scenes to insert into our book, as well as a few websites and quizzes. We hope that this iBook is not only fun to read, but helpful for everyone, and can be used by many teachers. First we will interview a few sixth graders to see what they went through in their transitions, and we will act out a few of those scenes and what to do when in those situations. We will also interview Mrs. Mac and Mrs. Callaway about the things they have seen happen to transitioning students and ask them about the best way to handle those. After we have got all our information we will put them into iBook to create a fun guide for 5th graders.

Team X Status Report #4

Before we dropped our egg I was feeling kind of scared but a little confident that our egg would make it past the first stage. We had tried so hard to get to the point we were, and I didn't really care if we made it or not, I was very proud that our group made it that far. Our lander went from having catastrophic failures to working every one or two times. And I was very proud that we fixed that in a few hours.
When we dropped our egg from the stairs, it broke. We put the egg on its side and didn't use enough shock absorbers, so it cracked in half.

Team X Status Report #3

The most challenging part was trying to make everything stay together. The strongest thing we had to stick things together was tape, and after a while the stick would leave. Another challenging thing was the shock absorbers. The shock absorbers cost a lot of money. My prediction is that our lander will work on the stairs and the rotunda, but it will break when we drop it from the roof.

Team X Status Report - Day 2

Air resistance is friction on an object as it is falling, which causes it to slow down. When we are doing our lander project, air resistance will be very important so that the parachute will slow down, and the impact on the floor won't be too hard. Our group planned to use styrofoam peanuts, and to elevate the egg a bit, to absorb the shock. So far we have made two parachutes and are almost done making the carrier. We have made two good parachutes, but they are very light. After we test the both of them we can add scraps of the bad one onto the good parachute to add weight and more air resistance.

Team X Status Report - Day 1

In Science class we are engineering a craft to hold an egg. It is called the Team X project. The egg will be dropped from a height down to a target. The goal is for the egg to land on the target without breaking. Problems we will be facing in this project is trying not to spend over our budget. We have to be very precise with the tools we use because they cost so much. We will also have to work through building our craft so that it won't break after a fall. We have to try and think of ways to help our craft land safely on the target without breaking the egg.

In my group there is Caleb and Afifah. We came up with the idea-with a bit of help- to make a pyramid shaped parachute with a basket connected to it, holding our egg. We worked hard trying to get everything to fit our budget, and we did. Our biggest challenge would be building the craft, and seeing if everything works. I hope that by next class we will be finished with the testing of the separate parts.