The Egg Drop Challenge Comes to Coors Field
A popular activity for teachers each year is the “egg drop.” Each student gets an egg and some guidelines to make a container that will protect the egg and keep it from breaking when it is dropped from high in the air.
The teacher usually perches herself high atop the roof of the school and tosses the contraptions the kids have come up with to the ground as crowds of kids scream with delight. It’s great fun to hear the cheers and an occasional “darn!” when the egg drop engineers open their containers. This activity is a great lesson in critical thinking skills, problem solving and the physics of dropping an egg.
At Weather and Science Day on May 12th, 2010, students will test out their safe packaging skills to see if their egg will survive a 57 foot drop from the upper level of Coors Field.
I approached my television producer with this idea several months ago… let’s invite viewers to nominate their favorite science teacher to receive a special visit from our morning crew at their school during our “Mad About Science” week at 9NEWS. My producer didn’t even have to think twice about the idea – do it! Within the first few hours after we made the announcement on-air, emails were coming in from all parts of Colorado. Every teacher nominated was worthy of a visit, but travel to some of the far reaching areas of Colorado played a factor in the selection process. The producers selected 5 amazing teachers who have their own special way of getting students excited about science.
