PYP How The World Works

Central Idea: The Form of Material Impacts It’s Function

Lines of Inquiry:

• The properties of materials (form)
• The way materials are used (purpose)
• Design (function)

What? Students have been inquiring into the properties of materials using their 5 senses for observation and the scientific process to test the properties of different materials. Students now have the opportunity to pick one type of material to research in depth during an immersive lab experience

How? Welcome to the plastic Lab! This is what our sign read to greet parents for our Celebration of Learning concluding our investigation and lab experience. The children walked their parents through their process from beginning to end with each activity we did in lab. Here’s the first 3 days of our process as a lab group:

• Day 1: Opening Question: What do we use plastic for? Why? After discussing, children explore everyday household plastic objects including shampoo bottles, yogurt containers, water bottles, and classroom toys. Children use magnify classes to look closely and think about what they can learn from each of their senses. Discussion: What did you notice about plastic? To conclude, children are given a lab notebook. On the first page they wrote down a question they had about plastic.
• Day 2: To begin, I showed students a picture of a tortoise (we several at school that roam the campus), but you could use any picture that is fun and relatable to your students. Opening Question: How would you describe this picture of a tortoise? I wrote down the words students were using to describe the tortoise, then we discussed that these were the characteristics of a tortoise. The children already knew this word characteristics because of our previous unit Who We Are. I then showed students some of the plastic they were looking at yesterday and asked them. What are all the words you could use to describe plastic? I gave my students each a few sticky notes and they wrote down as many words as they could with one word per sticky notes. We put up all the words on the board and I told students that because plastic is not a living thing like a tortoise, these words are all called the properties of plastic.
• Day 3: Opening Question: Why do you think we produce plastic? This opening question was also one of my students’ inquiry questions from the first day! I showed them a collection of images of plastic items before allowing them answer the question in a group discussion. Students said anything from, “to make toys”, to “because you make anything out of it!” I showed them a list of words they had came up with from the previous day and read that list to them- hard, soft, pointy, strong, smooth, etc. Do you know what opposites are? I asked them. Some students did! A lot of the words my students came up with were opposites which we found interesting, which is why plastic is so unique and ultimately why plastic was produced. We read a chapter in the book, Plastic, about Alexander Parkes, the creator of plastic and how and why he made this material.

Why? Students are naturally curious about what they use, and observe in their everyday life. Since all students got to choose which lab group they wanted to go into for this part of our unit, students were motivated and asked so many great questions which I used to move this unit along and hit on each line of inquiry. Our celebration of learning was a good opportunities to see which activities students had liked the best. Student rushed to show their parents how to fuse plastic beads together and were proud of their overall plastic designs, two of the activities we did later in this unit. Since this unit was full of hands-on activities and ended in a product students were proud of, they gained valuable collaboration, organization, and presentation skills.