Students at Centennial Elementary School in Edmond, OK loved having CaveSim at their school today.  In addition to the mobile cave, we had our vertical caving tower set up for the students to learn about simple machines (including pulleys), mechanical advantage, friction, and forces. We also set up cave rescue activities (which teach teamwork and communication skills), bat games (which teach life science concepts), and other stations.

Above, students learn about pulleys, mechanical advantage, friction, and other physics concepts on the 12′ CaveSim tower with help from CaveSim instructor Jesse Yazzetti.

Below, CaveSim instructor Scott Hall teaches students to work together as a team to “rescue” a classmate using a real cave rescue stretcher.  Photos by Leah DeGiacomo, 4th Grade Teacher.

    

Below, students learn about how cave formations grow from CaveSim inventor Dave Jackson, who is holding both artificial cave formations (stalactites) and a real cave formation (a soda straw that formed on the edge of a swimming pool because of concrete dissolution and redeposition).  Also below, students play a blindfold game about echolocation with the help of some awesome parent volunteers.

    

This was our first program in this district, and it went really well!  We worked with 255 students in 3rd and 4th grade, and we had wonderful help from CaveSim staffer Jesse Yazzetti and our friend and volunteer Scott Hall.  We ran four stations, including the trailer, tower, cave rescue/squeezebox, and bats.

Above, students are all smiles after exploring CaveSim.  Photo by Dave Jackson.