Sailing Through A Lesson On The Wind

By Tanjua Damon

What is wind? What causes wind?

 Sixth graders in Michelle Holda-Vaccaro’s science classes learned all about wind using handmade sailboats, three aluminum pans with water, and three fans.

Students were separated into groups of two and were given two minutes to design a sailboat and an additional five minutes to construct it. The only materials they were able to use included three sheets of construction paper, two pencils, tape, glue, scissors, and Styrofoam cups. Students did not have to use all of the materials allowed.

The object was to build the fastest sailboat possible and then test it in the “lake” with “wind,” according to Mrs Holda-Vaccaro. The science experiment, entitled “Winds of the World,” helped students to understand what wind is and where wind comes from.

The experiment reflects the six-week lesson on weather allowing students to understand how different aspects of weather occur. Besides experiments, the students also wrote weather fables.

“Some of them, when they were five years old, thought the wind came from God whistling,” Mrs Holda-Vaccaro said. “But now they know it comes from the jet stream.”

The paired teams raced their sailboats on Friday and Monday during science class at the middle school. One person set the boat in the water, while the other dealt with the fan and counted how long it took the sailboat to reach the other end of the “lake.” The lake consisted of a rectangular aluminum pan, similar to the one that might be used to roast a turkey, filled halfway with water. Three fans were placed behind each lake.

“It’s pretty fun,” Dan Pade said. “We just built it. I had something in mind, but we didn’t have enough time.”

The sailboat that won in cluster 6D was named The Marauder. It took one second to make it from one end to the other. Mike Frattaroli helped build the winning sailboat.

“It was half the length. It had less space to move,” Mike said. “If you put more stuff to catch the wind, it reached the end of the lake faster.”

Some students found that their sailboat inventions were not as cooperative to make it from one side of the “lake” to the other because of the construction. Several sailboats were too small or too top heavy to make the trip quickly.

But when the experiment was over, students had learned about wind.

Wind is a mass of moving air produced by an uneven heating by the sun on the earth’s surface, Mrs Holda-Vaccaro reviewed with her students. Warm air rises and it expands and becomes lighter. Cool air sinks and rushes in to fill that space left by the rising air.

“That is what causes wind,” she said.