Students used their understanding to create Rube Goldberg machines, chain reaction–type machines, intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overly complicated way (think the Wallace & Gromit morning routine machine).

Through experimentation students learned to use mechanical advantage to do work and measure it, gaining awareness of the relationship between the gain in force and the distance travelled to obtain that. Great success was had in popping a balloon and knocking down a domino tower.

In science we flip the ‘teach then show’ model by allowing students to first observe a phenomenon with deep curiosity, hypothesise potential answers and then test their educated guesses through experiment. The ability to observe with fresh eyes is a key step in the out-of-box thinking essential for innovation.

The beauty of this phenomenological approach is that it allows students the time to become scientists – motivated to trial, error and continuous inquiry through their own curiosity, observation and experimentation.