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Notes for teachers

This lesson takes place in a classroom for 30 min. to 1 hour.
Students may work in groups of 2-3.
Students will focus on water storage.
They will discuss design and redesign ways to preserve and supply water to populations.
Students will be working in teams to construct their Tower using everyday materials.
An emphasis on the target product (develop a water tower that can “supply” and “shut off.”
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Student use of technology for online construction.

List of Materials

50 Plastic/Paper Straws
50 Pipe Cleaners
25 Paper Clips

Testing Materials

Golf Ball (1 for each group)

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3rd Grade

Standards

Math

3.OA.A.3 Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement qualities.

3.OA.B.5 Apply properties of operations as a strategy to multiply and divide. Properties include commutative and associative properties of multiplication and the distributive property.

Science

3.P3. Changing the movement of an object requires a net force to be acting on it.

3.U2: The knowledge produced by science is used in engineering and technologies to solve problems and/or create products.

Standards

ELA

3.RI.1 Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

3.RI.4 Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

3.RI.10 By the end of the year, proficiently and independently read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in a text complexity range determined by qualitative and quantitative measures appropriate to grade 3.

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Objectives:

Today you will learn about engineering design and redesign.

Today you will learn about water delivery systems.

Today you will learn about teamwork and problem solving.

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Agenda (30-60 minutes)

What is a Water Tower?

Why are water towers so important?

Design-Plan-Engineer Structure

Share-Present-Reconstruct

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Intro/Anticipator Set/Opening

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Vocabulary

Engineer Design Process: Process engineers use to solve problems.
reservoir: Place where large amounts of water get stored.
hydrostatic pressure: The pressure exerted by water that force water to flow
scalable: When something is capable of being expanded on demand

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Hands-on Activity Instructions

In groups of 2-3, engineer a Water Tower that is capable of “supplying” and “shutting off” water.
Students will have one hour to build structure.
Students will learn how a water tower works with the use of hydrostatic pressure.
Students will design and plan a water tower using everyday materials.
Have students consider the following?

What materials will support water?
What can be used as a water substitute if your structure is not water resistant?
How will you start and stop the flow of water or water substitute?

Your tower must be able to deliver water 30 inches away, into a plastic container.
Students may trade materials with other teams to develop their tower.
Test your structure.

Equal Sharing: Group Size Unknown

If there are 200 straws shared equally between groups, how many straws will each group get?

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Assessments

Test Your Structure:

Was your tower able to deliver the water 30 inches away?
What aspects of your design do you think worked well?
What parts of your design do you feel needs to be improved?

ELA

Write a descriptive paragraph explaining how your Water Tower works. The paragraph must include how their water tower delivers water or water substitute to the container. Be sure to include the importance of hydrostatic pressure, materials used, and the shape of your reservoir.

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Differentiation

Students may also create their own design using an online application with time modifications.

https://toytheater.com/build/

Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

Have students predict if their design are scalable by doubling the distance from the water tower to the cup.

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