Design Challenge- Science 2

Design Challenge: Build a Floating Object that Carries the Greatest Load - Science 2

Upon completion of the Solids and Liquids unit in Grade 2 Science, students have been exposed to a wide variety of the properties of solids and liquids. In order to address higher levels of thinking, such as evaluation, synthesizing and creating, I used this performance task to allow my students to summarize, show and use what they had learned throughout the unit. This challenge allowed students to creatively build a boat, using common household materials. They then tested its capacity to float and carry a load, assessed its effectiveness and lastly revised and improved it.