The second time that we did the parachutes was great. I’m not sure if it was because the students were older or if it was because we had done the experiment once before and we understood it better and knew what to look for or a combination of both but I not only thought the experiment went much smoother but I also enjoyed teaching it a lot more. The kids were priceless! They had some really great answers to our questions and were very creative in trying to come up with reasons for why parachutes worked and what changing the weight would do and so on. One thing that I really noticed was that they loved it when I wrote names on the clothes pins that were going to represent people using the parachutes. At one point on little girl asked me to write her name on hers and for us both to use the parachute (her clothes pin and mine) and see what happened then. This only reinforces the importance of making personal connections for the students and their lives.
One thing that one group did the first time around that we did not do because we were not sure if we would have internet access was to show a video clip of a parachute deploying and have the students talk about what they saw when it went up. What happened to the persons movement when the parachute opened? What would happen if it had not opened? Having the students watch video clips allows them to see what should actually happen in the experiment occasionally and the videos might trigger some prior knowledge that they have and can contribute to the conversation throughout the lesson.
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