Science in action at Wauconda schools

Students are learning to think like a scientist and experience science in action at Transfiguration Catholic Elementary School and Frassati Catholic Academy, both located in Wauconda. Students in grades 3-8 submitted about 110 projects for the annual Egg Drop on May 28th. The Wauconda Fire Department joined in the science experiment by providing a fire engine for the drop.

For the past month, students have been working on a science project to create a container that will protect one fresh egg from a 100-foot drop. The first step was to design a structure to protect the egg and provide an explanation of how it will work. The next step was to create the structure. And finally, they were able to test their container at the Egg Drop event.

To test the success of each container, the Wauconda Fire Department brought a fire engine to our campus to test the projects by dropping them 100-feet from the “cherry picker” on the fire engine. This is a highly anticipated event for the budding scientists to test their prototypes!

Students are encouraged to think about how to reduce the impact of the drop, how to cushion the egg, to be creative and have fun! They learn from their successes and failures, and learn how to think critically about why some containers work and some do not. Several students will take a project that didn't work and refine their project for next year.

This year, every project in our fifth grade class successfully protected the egg! Congratulations to our budding scientists!