Category: 2015-2016

Exploration Name: Simple Machines (Toys)

Exploration Dates: August 12 – September 26

Number of students: 13

Essential Questions:

1.What are simple machines?

2.What is mechanical advantage?

3.How can simple machines be used to create engaging interactive toys and why is toy                          creation a powerful form of learning?

Description:

In our Exploration class we learned about simple machines and how to make toys using cams (it is like a circle, like wheel and axle) + simple machines. Simple machines can make some jobs easier to do. We learned about wedges, levers, pulleys, inclined planes, gears, screws, wheels and axles. Each of these things have different advantages and disadvantages. Levers are the most used in real life. Levers can be anything you hold. Ex. sword handle, computer lid, all of those things are levers. When we started we learned about how to use simple machines in our toys. We watched a lot of videos to understand and to get new ideas. We first built toys for testing our project. It worked but it was too small and not good enough. We researched more and then we got more ideas from books, computers and videos. When we had enough knowledge and enough information, we got an idea and we worked in teams. We thought that to make our toy more interactive, we have to get some paint to make it colorful. When we finished the toy we planned a trip with our teacher to Takeo province. Our trip was not long just half a day travel and half a day at NFO to teach the students there about simple machines and how to make toys. We came back to set up for our presentation in the big area. All of Liger students came to see us and learn from each other.

Our group picture

 

 

In our crisis Exploration, we learned a lot of things that happen outside in the environment. Crisis is the bad thing that happens to people and is unsafe to people. Example: the cars are crashing or the train is falling. We learned about what is a natural disaster. Natural disasters are caused by nature. Natural disasters are: earthquakes, avalanches, and storms, for example. Then we talked about a volcano. A volcano is the mountain that has magma inside. When it is erupting out, the magma will turn to lava. Lava can make islands when it touches the cold place and it turns to the rock. Crisis management is how the aid workers help people when there is a crisis. One way they help is by evacuating people away. Example: when it has a flood, aid workers evacuate people out to the safe place. We also took a trip to share with the students at the government school at Takhmao City. We chose this school because this is the old school that two Liger students have learned at before. We taught the students who were in grades 5 and 6. We shared some things that we learned like floods, storms, earthquakes, and avalanches. The students werevery smart to answer the questions and understand the information.

If you want to know more you can click the like below. The link below is our Crisis Management blog.

http://crisismanagement.ligercambodiablog.org/