Lesson 17 of 84 · Engineering and Design

Experiment⭐ 30 XP🛠️ Engineer Shop

Fair Tests: Changing One Thing

🧪Lab Brief #17

Engineering and Design.

🎯 Your mission

Run the experiment. Find out what really happens.

⚡ The twist

The first design always fails. That's the point.

🤯

Mind = Blown

🚀 The Saturn V rocket burned 20 tons of fuel per second at liftoff.

🔮

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: what's the weakest part of this build?

What You'll Learn

A fair test changes only one thing. If you change two things, you will not know which one made the difference.

Key Words

problem
solution

Materials Needed

aluminum foil
ruler
markers

Safety First

Adult supervision recommended.

Steps

Step 1 — Read

Look at the new words. Can you say each one?

Step 2 — Do

Design a boat from foil that can hold the most pennies without sinking.

Step 3 — Observe

Use your senses to describe what you notice.

Step 4 — Record

Write 1-2 sentences about what happened.

Check Your Understanding

Question 1

1 of 3

What does 'predict' mean?

How sure are you going to be?😐 maybe

🌍

Where you see this in real life

Every bridge, building, and gadget you've ever used started with this.

🏆

Stretch Challenge

Try this in real life this week.

Find something that's broken at home and try to figure out *why* it broke.

👨‍👩‍👧

For the dinner table

“What's something around the house you'd redesign — and how?”

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

🧬Share card

Share this experiment

Send it to a parent who's looking for a 10-minute kitchen science win.

🖨️

Checkout complete lesson on Engineering and Design for 1st Grade

Get the full Engineering and Design track as a printable PDF — all lessons, worksheets, and answer keys.

View in Shop

Done with science? Try something else

🎮Science Games 🔢Math 📖Flashcards 🖨️Print Worksheet 💻Coding 🛍️Shop 🎲I'm Bored