Trouble on the Genius Hour Front

Time for a weekly update on my Genius Hour! This week, while experimenting with my paper airplane designs that I have selected, I ran into a bit of a problem. Well, it's more like an it of a problem. The problem that I ran into this week while working on my Genius Hour was the household cat, Oliver, and the dog, Milo.

As I was testing my airplanes, I was throwing them down the hallway because that is the only suitable space in my apartment, however there was a bigger issue. Both Oliver and Milo seemed to think that my Genius Hour was on toys for the animals. Oliver was swatting the planes out of the air and Milo was chewing on them when they hit the ground. This resulted in the destruction of several of my planes, and needing to start over on my testing.

In order to resolve this problem, both of the animals had to be relocated to separate rooms for the duration of my testing. The paper airplanes had to be rebuilt because I believe the testing can only be considered accurate and reliable if the same test is administered to the same plane built by the same person. This week will constitute of rebuilding and retesting those fallen planes.

At least the two of them are cute!

My Genius Hour Reflection

ALERT- GENIUS HOUR UPDATE IN PROGRESS:

Slowly, but surely, I am working towards identifying my paper airplanes that will be suited to the challenges set by my Genius Hour goals. This week I experimented with different paper airplane designs to see which I could make consistently and which seemed better suited to general flight. Testing will take place over this coming week. So far, my favourite aerodynamic, flying paper pulp seems to be the classic, needle nosed paper airplane.

A question that I have of my Genius Hour project is if the same style of paper airplane would perform differently if it was folded by different people. In order to solve this question, I believe that my next step is to have friends and family duplicate my work in order to see if they can duplicate my results. This is very similar to the peer review process of scientifically accurate research.

Also, during Technology in the Classroom this week, we discussed the concept of creativity and the idea that a box can be 'not-a-box'. This resonated with me, as my Genius Hour focuses on taking something ordinary, a piece of paper, and making something extraordinary out of it. Students (and teachers!) have the amazing power to see things in a different light using the power of divergent thinking. This is why inquiry based learning and student agency in the classroom is so important because students may come up with ideas/knowledge you couldn't ever imagine.

This is NOT A BOX. This is Han Solo frozen in carbonite.