Gizmos & Gadgets: Creating Science Contraptions That Work (& Knowing Why)

Gear up to discover science by constructing weird, wacky contraptions. With this guide, children can start building, questioning, creating, and inventing--all the while learning fun physics principles and good science practices. 150+ illustrations.

Grade 4-7-Hauser gives directions for making a bunch of gadgets, gizmos, contraptions, and doohickeys constructed with stuff often found in cupboards, closets, garages, and "junk" drawers. Materials such as plastic soda bottles, marbles, buttons, straws, and cardboard tubes are cut, trimmed, shaped, and bent in order to be glued, stapled, sewn, and taped. They are ultimately formed into objects to be tossed, balanced, spun, flung, and strung-all to demonstrate various principles of physics. Also included are nudges to encourage individual forays into the worlds of problem solving and inventing. Fun to make-and probably fun to play with-the crafts, if followed sequentially, introduce such basic topics as motion, energy, balancing, and gravity. Even if used as random crafts, they will lead to questions regarding the predictable behaviors of such objects as boomerangs and yo-yos. Classroom teachers can team this with Vicki Cobb's Why Can't You Unscramble an Egg? (Lodestar, 1990; o.p.) and Bernie Zubrowski's Raceways: Having Fun with Balls and Tracks (Morrow, 1985; o.p.).
Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.