Science storytelling

Many of our projects are built around a story. In this project, children create a machine for planting marbles using concepts they've already learnt such as mechanical linkages and simple machines. We wanted to challenge children with a problem that would be familiar to anyone living in an agricultural area, and we wanted to tell it with a silly story that would make the lesson feel urgent and exciting. Projects like these are an example of Anchored Learning, where the knowledge is anchored to a real life situation. And while marble trees on Mars might not sound like real life, to a child's imagination, they are more real than colourless diagrams, and equations on the blackboard!