For my third STEAM activity, I decided to leave the world of mathematics and enter the world of physics. Around the time of this activity, Scott Kelly was returning from his historic (almost a) year in space, so rockets seemed like a good idea.
Scientific American and NASA both have lesson activities around paper rockets with straw launchers. NASA also has an activity with stomp rockets. Stomp rockets seemed like they'd have more impact with the students, but I wasn't sure if we could go outside or not, so I emailed the teacher to ask, and prepared activities around both.
As it turned out, we could go outside, so I decided to do a classroom demonstration with a straw rocket, have the students build stomp rockets (hopefully taking into account the things they learned from my straw rocket demonstration), then go outside and watch them fly.
The activity started with a picture of Astronaut Scott Kelly, describing what he had just done, then asking the students how astronauts get to the International Space Station. With the answer, "rockets", given I announced that we were going to build rockets.
"A rocket is generally a long cylinder to hold all the fuel necessary to get the astronaut into orbit. So what happens if it's just a cylinder?" I asked, producing a pre-made straw rocket with no fins. I launched it across the room and watched it tumble. "Does that seem like a good way to get an astronaut to the International Space Station?" I asked. Everyone agreed that it was not.
"What if we put fins at the top of the rocket?" I produced a pre-made straw rocket with fins at the top of the rocket, launched it across the room, and watched it tumble. "That doesn't seem to help."
"What if we move the fins to the bottom of the rocket?" I again produced a pre-made straw rocket, this time with fins on the bottom and launched it. It flew in a nice, ballistic trajectory. "Does that seem like it could get an astronaut to the space station?" Everyone agreed that it did.
"So let's build some rockets," I said. "Only..." I looked at the straw rocket. "This seems kind of small." I reached into a paper grocery bag I had brought with me and pulled out a stomp rocket. "Why don't we build big rockets then go outside and launch them?" This was met with great enthusiasm.
I demonstrated how to construct a paper stomp rocket, handed out supplies, and let the class build. Once everyone was done (which took longer than I expected), we went outside. I quickly assembled six launchers, showed how they worked, and let the student go. The rest of the time was spent fixing launchers and handing out spare rockets that I had brought with me.
For the launchers, I substituted milk jugs for the two liter bottles that are called for because that was what I had. This turned out to be a bad idea because the jug does not fit well on a 1/2-inch PVC pipe. A two liter bottle seems like it would. The jug connection (I used the cap with a cut out hot glued and duct taped to the pipe) was the weak link in the system, and I was constantly repairing it.
At the end of the activity, I had a number of destroyed milk jugs, no more spare rockets, and a very happy teacher and students.
If you are planning a stomp rocket STEAM activity, bring plenty of spare rockets, and duct tape for repairs.
