Crater Impact Study Started with 7th graders

Yesterday, September 20, 2019 seventh graders and I started experimenting with flour and colored water to serve as a crust layer along with gathered parking lot rocks as meteoroids to try different angles and heights (10", 20", 30", and over 36") for solar system impact observation study.

Here are a few photos in action yesterday:

I took photos of all 4 groups but I don't know what happened to the rest of the photos. I'll have to follow up later. Each group had different colored water (blue, purple-blue, green, and red). Equipped with yardsticks to check the different height drops, students were trying to coordinate different tasks including data keeping. However, data keeping went by the wayside as playing with the flour and water after 'meteoroid' landings needed to be checked for depths of the impact craters. [math integration] 

Supplies were: old metal baking pans, paper towel layer, flour (about 2 lbs.), squirt bottles, food coloring, water, rocks of different sizes, yardsticks, yellow copy paper for data, and pencils.

Oh, what a mess they made however they were so excited to be 'doing science' that I couldn't get too upset and frustrated with them. Afterwards as they finished cleaning their hands and were getting their stuff to go to their next class, almost every one of the 13 (of 14) seventh graders made a comment about how cool that was....

From the USA heartland,

Becca S