Our Curious Classroom: Exploring Energy and Human Progress

Energy is the fundamental currency of the universe.
-Author Unknown

This week, our class dove deeper into our inquiry on potential and kinetic energy through an exciting webquest activity. The students explored interactive online activities where they watched and reimagined rollercoaster designs, helping them see how energy changes form during motion. To make the learning even more engaging, they designed skate park tracks online, experimenting with how potential energy transforms into kinetic energy. It was wonderful to see their creativity and curiosity in action!

In addition to this, we began exploring how energy has supported human progress throughout history. Starting from the discovery of fire, the children learned about significant milestones in how humans have harnessed energy over time. Our class discussions were rich with thoughtful reflections, and some students even created impressive visuals to represent key inventions and discoveries related to energy. We discovered how harnessing energy supports the manual work we do, and has provided us with opportunities to innovate and create. Apart from this, we also learned that despite all the major advancements in technology throughout time, what we first harnessed as human beings -- fire -- is just as important as the latest and most advanced invention that we have to date. It is so hard to imagine what life would be like had our ancestors not discovered how to harness energy thousands of years ago.

Building on this timeline of progress, we are now working together to create a life-sized board game. Each student has been assigned a tile representing an important invention or discovery. This game will help us explore whether progress is always positive or if there might be some unintended consequences along the way. We are excited to complete the board next week and play the game together.