As part of the fall 2020 edition of South San Francisco Unified School District’s (SSFUSD) Helix Cup egg drop challenge, science teachers from Alta Loma (ALMS), Parkway Heights (PHMS), and Westborough Middle Schools (WMS) tested the ability of containers constructed by eighth grade students to protect an egg dropped from heights of six, 12, and 18 feet.
While containers designed by Team Nutella and Team Swoosh of PHMS and Team Sea Winds and Team OTF of WMS all survived the challenge, it was Team Nutella that scored enough points to join Team Biotech of ALMS and Team All-Stars of WMS as overall winners of the fall semester.
According to WMS science teacher Natalie Wong, students had to build their egg drop containers at home this year and drop them off at school due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Likewise, all of the teaching and discussion surrounding the science of force and gravity also took place via distance learning.
“We specifically covered Newton’s second law, which discusses how mass & acceleration or gravity tie into how much force is produced,” said Wong.
Team members then convened via video conference to talk through design features and sketch out individual blueprints.
Volunteers from Genentech also visited science classes virtually to help guide the students, as they built and tested their designs.
Team members with the best individual design were tasked with constructing an egg drop container for the team, while other team members produced a video to demonstrate what they had learned.
The Helix Cup competition is sponsored by Genentech and is designed to engage eighth graders by helping them develop problem-solving, teamwork, and science skills.
In normal times, students would square off against teams within their own schools, and the top teams would advance to challenge other top performing teams from other SSFUSD middle schools during the semester, culminating in a final, day-long competition at Genentech.