🌉 Paper bridges and blocks: the whole packet

🌉 Paper bridges and blocks · kindergarten · 1 day of testing · free · 30 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how the paper is folded, then how many blocks it holds before it falls will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📄 Paper: 3 sheets the same size
• 📚 Some books: 2 piles the same height
• 🁫 Dominoes, or small wooden blocks all the same size: about 20 small wooden blocks
• 🖍️ Crayons or markers

Be safe: ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small

1. Make two piles of books, a hand apart.
2. Lay a flat sheet of paper across the gap to make a bridge.
3. Put blocks in the middle one at a time, counting, until it falls.
4. Your grown-up writes the number down. Do it two more times.
5. Fold a sheet in half for a bridge, and test it three times.
6. Your grown-up helps you fold a sheet back and forth like a fan. Test it three times.
7. Colour a box for every block. Which bridge held the most?

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Bridge   I measured: how many blocks it holds before it falls (blocks)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: bridge along the bottom, blocks up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: make the gap between the books wider, and test all three bridges again.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which paper bridge holds the most blocks: flat, folded once or folded like a fan?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how the paper is folded would change how many blocks it holds before it falls, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how the paper is folded (Flat, Folded once, Folded like a fan) and measured how many blocks it holds before it falls in blocks.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same size of paper and the same two piles of books the same, so only how the paper is folded was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Flat and Folded like a fan gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: make the gap between the books wider, and test all three bridges again.