STEM Awards – QLD winner 2022
Project Summary
This project explored a very popular character, Humpty Dumpty, and investigated how to change different parts of his fall to stop him from cracking. The initial spark for this investigation started during a yoga warm up pose that the children and educators like to do together. During this yoga pose the children curl up into eggs and sing the nursery rhyme before Humpty cracks and they have to balance on our bottoms with their arms and legs out. Through a very animated conversation the children came up with the idea to see if we could ‘save’ Humpty Dumpty.
During the course of the project the children became experts at proposing new ideas to save Humpty Dumpty aka the egg and at hypothesizing the outcome. The children learned a lot from failure and instead of hampering their enthusiasm, it spurred them on to try new ways to save Humpty from cracking! The project also expanded into other areas of play within the centre and children expressed their ideas creatively by for example designing and making houses for Humpty to live in. Humpty Dumpty has made quite an impact on this kindy group, with families even excited to hear about his updates each day.
What surprised you about the project?
The children’s brainstorm about how to save Humpty surprised me in the fact that every single person participated, and the children didn’t need any scaffolding as to what we were looking for. Kyle kicked off our brainstorm with “he needs to land on something soft,” and from there, the children’s ideas kept coming! Also, the higher order thinking and problem-solving skills shown by many of the children just prove how capable and creative children are when given the chance to share their ideas.
What the judges said
This project was well documented and provided a good insight to the children’s thinking and use of STEM ideas. The children were continually challenged and collaborated very well with each other to find solutions. It is a great example as to how a simple problem can be explored in many different ways without the children losing interest.
We thank the sponsors of the 2022 Early STEM Award.
Technology sponsor
We thank Air Exchange for enabling us to use the online award submission platform Award Force.
