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Mrs. Palm and Ms. Crossley’s Grade 3 classes are wrapping up their fifth IB PYP Unit of Inquiry of the school year entitled “How we organize ourselves.” The central idea of the unit is “Life changes as technology develops”. To complete the unit the students came up with unique ways on how to improve current inventions in their households.
Students were able to add new features to existing ideas, but the end product also had to be sustainable. They created a plan by drawing and labelling their invention ideas. Then the students were tasked with building them out of recycled materials.
Some of the inventions students came up with include “The Envir Car,” “Rocket Roller Skates,” and a dual washer-dryer machine with an automatic folding feature.
Students even went big, with one coming up with an environmentally friendly city. The city shows that every house would have a windmill, and all houses would have living walls with moss and ferns. The city would float above the trees so it can grow without cutting down plants. Photos of the inventions can be seen here.
After the students came up with their creations, they were asked to interview a member of their household on an issue or problem they were having at home, to inspire ideas for an invention that could be created to solve the problem.
Students asked questions in their interviews such as “Can you name a problem that you have around the house, or something frustrating that you can improve on in the future?” As well as, “If you could create a new invention for this use, what would it be?”; “What are some of the special features?”; and “How would you make this invention sustainable?”
Ideas that were presented include a vaccination machine to help with the current COVID-19 pandemic, creating software for electronic devices to stop the over-charging, a supersonic plane to make it easy to talk to relatives across seas, a robot machine that can weed the garden, and a dishwasher that doesn’t leak.
Throughout their unit, the Grade 3 students were guided by certain lines of inquiry, including:
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Inventions that impact people’s livesTechnology that helps us to organize ourselvesHow our use of technology impacts sustainabilityCongratulations to all of the Grade 3 inventors for coming up with unique possibilities for the future!
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