caffeineandbooks Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 It's been a long-term parental dream around here to spend a semester in middle school on "MacGyver science". I'm talking the old school Richard Dean Anderson version, not the reboot 🙂 Does anyone know of such a thing in ready-made form? If not, I'm willing to look at making my own but am not quite sure where to start. A couple of MythBusters episodes tie in to the show - the basic assessment seems to be that MacGyver's science is sound even though it's a bit convenient that he always has exactly what he needs! I had thought to ditch all our regular curriculum except maths for that semester, and theme everything around "survival" type elements: natural disasters, building shelter, purifying water, first aid course, camping out, and man vs wild type fiction along the lines of Hatchet or Robinson Crusoe. Mullets strictly optional 😁 Anyone want to play? How would you go about fulfilling this brief? 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cintinative Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 These are some websites I had bookmarked for making toys from household objects. I am not sure if they would be helpful but you can check them out. https://sciencetoymaker.org/ http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/films.html http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/toys.html https://www.wired.com/2016/01/how-to-build-a-super-simple-electric-motor-out-of-stuff-you-already-have/ Have you ever seen Junkyard Wars? It's been forever since it's been on TV but there are tons of episodes. It looks like some are on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G22CSYyDTo0&list=PL3MHe17K-JvA74CFjv4PwUJvN5s1bAm8F&index=2&t=0s Apparently Junkyard Wars was the American version of "Scrapheap Challenge" which was a British show, so you can look for that one as well. These are engineering focused units https://www.eie.org/engineering-everywhere/curriculum-units 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monica_in_Switzerland Posted July 19, 2020 Share Posted July 19, 2020 My kids love doing Instant Challenges http://www.cre8iowa.org/resources/instant-challenge-library/ For MacGyver theme, you'll want the task-based ones. They use common objects to build all sorts of stuff. I love love loved MacGyver growing up!!! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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