Science Club - The Colossus of Rhodes

Today was our first session of Science Club! Topic:

The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters:
33 Thrilling Experiments Based on History's Greatest Blunders
by Sean Connolly

I wrote a blog post previously with my planning notes when doing this block on Zoom. Now I get to do it IRL with a group of students!

For each disaster I'll share my up-to-date notes and some photos. First up, The Colossus of Rhodes.

- look at pictures of the Statue of Liberty, read the poem "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus from Emma's Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser

- read "The Colossus of Rhodes" information from The Book of Massively Epic Engineering Disasters, pp. 1-5

- do experiment #2 "Hold That Pose"

for each team (set up two):

large cardboard box, opened and laid flat on the grass

bath towel

kitchen chair

note: have children remove their shoes so that they don't have extra traction

- do experiment #1 "All Shook Up"

for each table (set up three):

paper plate with 1/2 bag mini marshmallows

paper plate with 250 toothpicks


for each person / team:

painting board

masking tape and Sharpie to label board


for testing the designs:

LARGE casserole dish filled with Jell-O made in advance
(it worked best to use my roasting pan and two 6 ounce packages)

note: it would be really nice to have two sizes of marshmallows and two lengths of toothpicks for this (they quickly found out that the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle is longer than the legs)

- pass out new Science Club notebooks, one for each child (Main Lesson Book - portrait format - 24x32cm - no onion skin - red)

- leave front page blank to be the table of contents, have each child draw and write notes about his/her favorite experiment or about the disaster itself

Sensory Play Note:
It is VERY fun to make up a sensory bin with large slabs of gelatin and hot water, and touch and feel the gelatin as it is dissolving. So don't just throw the Jell-O out! Let your children play with it!

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