Eighth-grade students in Patricia Fillipino’s Kickemuit Middle School science classes have been getting their hands warm with a thermal energy unit that has some real-world applications.

“With project-based learning, we’re asked to connect a [curriculum] standard to a real-life situation and connect it to the community,” said Fillipino.

Her students researched, investigated and completed various labs to learn how heat works and can be transferred. They drew models that showed their understanding of how heat transfers using different states of matter, and learned how thermal energy works and how it can be maximized or minimized to keep people warm or cool.

Then they put that knowledge to use.

“My group been working on socks made from flannel and polyester fleece,” said Emerie Watkinson, one of Fillipino’s students. “We found that people’s hands and feet, ears and head get the coldest, so we made hats and socks.”

It began with a cup experiment which showed the students that thicker materials, with denser molecules packed more closely together, did a better job of keeping heat in (or out). Experiments with infrared to show body heat loss, and materials science lessons followed.

“We saw how air, water, and solid molecules work differently,” said Watkinson. “Air and water don’t stick together as much, so solid materials work better.”
Then, they learned to sew.

“I gave them some options…too many options, it turns out,” Fillipino said, laughing. Mittens, she admitted, were exceptionally complicated to execute. One pleasant surprise was the last-minute addition of earmuffs to the lineup, at the suggestion of a student who did her own research. “They came out amazing, and they’re nice and warm,” said Fillipino.

The project itself was complicated a bit by the timing of the holidays and the Covid surge — they had hoped to interview some senior citizens as part of their preparation. Technical difficulties with machines coupled with the learning curve of many students learning to sew for the first time also slowed things down a bit, but they are about ready to deliver the results of all their hard work, just as the first real cold snap of the winter is upon us.

The Bristol Senior Center was the first Fillipino thought of as beneficiaries of the students’ work, as she knows Donna Wilson and Maria Ursini from when she taught their children at KMS — but she looks forward to working with the Warren Senior Center next year, and alternating after that.

In addition to the project’s successful application as a science teaching tool, Fillipino was pleased with how several of the students got into the the creative process. One student even made a blanket for his grandmother for Christmas.

“The sense of accomplishment was wonderful, he did it on his own,” she said. “Another went home, found a pattern online and made a pair of socks. I would like to get some good machines back in here and maybe start a sewing club because some of the students really got into it.”

“We try to keep it as hands-on as we can.”