Today students imagined they were lost in the woods with no clean water to drink. We followed the science/engineering design process to learn about, design, make, test, and improve water filters. All in all the project went well. We followed the steps on this STEAMsheet.
Next year, I'll stick with the introduction and design parts, but when it comes to making the water filters, I'll likely place the materials in tubs a distance from each other--that will give students a chance to circle from one place to another without a traffic jam to get supplies. I may give a limit to how much of each supply since some students had a difficult time judging what was too much for a bottle to hold.
