Solar plane – plane construction

Hello

I'm a teacher that focuses on practical learning or "learning by doing".

I have a Bachelor of Arts in Primary Education - Extended School.

Our school have a little tiny area for us to be creative in (as seen on the photo), but we try to make the best of it. This year we have been constructing a Stone Age - Iron Age Village in clay that have been a big hit among the students as well as a castle in sugar cubes, even though we didn’t always have the right glue (so it melted).

Project

It all started with that we noticed a growing need for practices on how to work together and communicate in a empathic manor. Sort of like "cooperation exercises". That's why we started thinking about what type of project that would bring all the students and their ideas together in a fun and creative way.

Our school wants to implement more technology for our students and that’s what we’d like to base our project on. We want to develop the learning and understanding for our students in a practical way. So we thought about constructing a plane with the students. Constructing a plane would take our students interests of construction and combine it with the communication and teamwork that our students need to practice. The goal is to make it a solar plane if we have the funds for it.

How would we implement such a project?

• The students will watch and discuss videos about plane construction and all the factors involved in making a plane.
• The students will work together in both designing and constructing the plane.
• The students will take turns writing in a logbook about the progress being made.
• The students will be mostly independent but with our support when needed.
• The students will set up deadlines that has to be met.
• The students will present the finished plane on the last deadline.

We would be so thankful to all who can give even a little to our project. It would be so great for our students to be able to work on a project of this scale, like they’ve never done before. So everything is highly appriciated and we cannot describe how happy we all would be.

We will make a video diary of the project and take photos to document every step taken.

Hopefully we can start this project and if it works well then maybe it can be used in different grades on different skill levels and variations.

Thank you.

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Ivar