Fidget Spinners Become Tool for Science Lesson

Teachers set up different experiments and learning stations in classrooms and students rotated throughout the afternoon.

Laura DeWitt's experiment using the spinning toy was a favorite stop. There, students had to spin the Fidget a number of times and record how long the Fidgets could spin. Then they tried different variables – like holding the Fidget while spinning, or laying it on a table or other surface. Did spinning it vertically or flat make a difference in the length of the spin? Some were able to remove weights to see if that affected the Fidget Spinner.

The Fidget Spinners are so popular stores are having a hard time keeping them on shelves and some schools have banned students from having them in class because they've become a distraction. DeWitt saw them as a tool to teach science.

Science Day was designed to give students a chance to participate in hands-on science lessons like taking measurements, building bridges with plastic straws, creating boats from aluminum foil and seeing how much weight they could hold, and even learning about robots and drones.

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