The grades for a Creighton Community School science class aren’t just pass or fail – they’re sink or swim.
A class project had students construct functional boats out of limited materials.
“It’s cardboard and tape, that’s it,” said teacher Ryan Gray. “No glue, no paint, no nothing.”
Students could choose between duct tape and packing tape, but otherwise were left to their own devices. They worked on the boats as part of a science project on buoyancy and floatation.
The students constructed their boats with the guidance of classroom teaching and online lessons. The finished boats ranged from simple rafts to large, speedboat-style crafts.
“Hopefully they’ll learn something about buoyancy and weight distribution. We’ll see,” said Gray.
The project came down to a main event on Friday, April 21 at the Flin Flon Aqua Centre.
The students held one-on-one drag races, each paddling their vessels from one end of the pool to the other. Some boats handled the water well, while others quickly fell apart.
After one fast pass down the length of the pool, few of the vessels were still ship-shape, but the students who built and powered them were in high spirits.
“They are really into this. They have collaborated, they’ve done their research,” said Gray. “Teamwork is involved. There’s a little bit of competition involved now. They’re saying, ‘My boat’s better than yours’ and stuff like that. Hopefully that’ll entice them to have some fun and learn about what we’re doing in science with our buoyancy unit.”
