IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today is the day we finally figured out how long the whale shark is!

Thanks to the help of a couple friends who brought in measuring tapes today, we were able to measure the length of our pipe line. At the end of free choice time, all the students had a seat by our string of pipes, next to the wall. We investigated the measuring tapes and found out where the inches lines and feet lines were. After we had an understanding of our tool, we began to measure. Unfortunately, our measuring tape ran out when it reached twelve feet. Not to worry though, because we had a second twelve foot measuring tape. When this one ended, I asked the students how far we had measured so far if we had gone twelve feet and then twelve more feet. One student informed me that we had measured twenty-four feet of our pipe line. At the point, we were out of measuring tapes, so I asked the students how they thought we should measure the remaining pipes. Spencer told me that we could use the ruler now, so I got out a basket of rulers and laid them end to end until we reached the end of string of pipes. The students had been counting with me and we found out that our string of pipes was only thirty-one feet long. We continued to lay the rulers down, counting from thirty-one up to forty. By the time we reached forty feet, our rulers had made there way into the hallway and the kids were ecstatic! Who knew a whale shark could be so long! The students helped me lay duct tape down next to our pipes and rulers so that we could have a more permanent representation of our whale shark’s length. Needless to say, the kids were excited to have finally reached our goal of measuring the whale shark. There excitement spilled over into all the other ideas they had of what we should do next with our shark project! Now we’re thinking we need to begin some shark journals for all of our research, and I was told I need to contact a shark specialist to come and talk to us about sharks too! I’ll keep you updated! It’s sure to be great!

Our whole class sits along the length of our whale shark. Tyrese is standing at the very end to show how far the tape goes!

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