What did you think of this activity? "It was great!" a student replied as they designed, tested, and cried in jubilation or despair as their cell phone case designs protected their clay pigeon cell phones during a science engineering activity in 7th-grade science today!
The motto for this lesson was, "Let's get off those screens by breaking them!" In pairs, students worked together to create a shatterproof cell phone case that they then dropped from a height of six feet. Most students experienced success during their three prototype builds. Students who cracked or shattered all three of their clay pigeons came up and said, "We failed!" In response, science teachers replied, "Well, you now know three ways that a cell phone case won't work, right?" Which alludes to Thomas Edison's story of engineering the first light bulb. As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." To persevere in the face of failure and adversity is one of the core values that students at Diamond Fork Middle School exemplify even with just a couple of days left of school! Go, Diamondbacks!!