Monday, April 4, 2011

Learning through life

We took a trip to Jerome this past weekend for a quick lesson on Copper mining in Arizona. The intent was to help gather information for R's science report on Copper.  The results were what we intended and then some.

Visiting the Daisy Mine's, Audrey Shaft and Douglas Museum, ignited a fire in S. He was absolutely fascinated with the whole mining operation. The mine shaft, in particular, got his creative juices flowing and when we came home he wanted to build his own working mine shaft. He had a Kinex rollercoaster that he had put together w/ Mark at Christmas. He came up with the idea of taking apart his roller coaster (to which I gasped as it took hours to build LOL) and use the parts to build a working mine shaft. He figured out the logistics of it all on Saturday evening, drew up some plans and began building the structure itself. On Sunday, he finished the project adding the conveyor belt so the car can move up and down the shaft.

S's. Mine Shaft

I love how he took an idea and made it happen, all by himself! I think his plan is to continue adding paper around the structure so you only have a little bit showing, "above ground", the rest of it going deep into the bowels of the Earth. :)

What inspired S.

Looking down the shaft.
That's a long, long way down! 
1,900' to the bottom, you hit water at 1,500'


2 comments:

Heather @ Marine Corps Nomads said...

Oh, that looks like a fun field trip. We love doing stuff like that. It's always great when they take what they learned and run with it. :)

Nikki said...

This does look like a fun field trip! I think S's mine shaft is super! Don't you love it when they get excited about projects all on their own! THAT is some true, meaningful learning!