Lake Marie Elementary’s 5th grade class had an exciting Halloween STEM project creating mini pumpkin catapults on Halloween day.
Creating these mini pumpkin catapults was their first project that began their engineering unit. This project incorporated new academic vocabulary that they have been working on including criteria, catapult, constraints, and predict. Each student had a science journal to document their project. They each had to write their materials used, create an example of their design, write their prediction, as well as document their results from their inquiry and what they would do the next time to improve their design.
When building the catapults students were given simple materials. This included popsicle sticks, rubber bands, glue, tape, and plastic spoons. Students then were able to work collaboratively to talk through different ideas and thoughts while each creating their own design.
After each student was done creating their catapult it was time to put their design to the test. They were given their candy pumpkin and tried out their catapult. They then measured the distance the pumpkin launched and compared their hypothesis against their results.
This STEM project was led by Lake Marie’s 5th grade teacher Mrs. Denise Zazueta.