Students in Ian Clerkin’s fourth-grade class learned about six types of simple machines in the world.
The students were shown examples and how the machines help objects work more efficiently. They then started to look for examples both in the classroom and around the school, identifying the characteristics that made it a simple machine. Finally, students took this knowledge and discovered that amusement parks had quite a few examples.
Following all of this, the class completed a project that required them to design an amusement park, complete with rides that featured one or more of these simple machines. Finally, they chose one of these rides to bring to life, either by using physical materials or by using TinkerCad, a 3D rendering program to 3D print their location.