Fishing and Engineering

Looking for ways to incorporate engineering principles into your Fish Iowa! program? Try these activities shared with us by Ti Piper, New Mexico Department of Game & Fish Fishing Skills Educator Contractor.

Ordered Pairs Activity

Materials

casting gear with 1/4 ounce plastic casting weights

100 foot (or metric) tape

25 foot (or metric) tape

3x5 cards for data recording

pens (no pencils for data recording in science engineer field journals).

Doing the Activity

• Lay out 100 foot tape in safe casting zone on playground
• Students cast down the 100' tape while other students report length and “off course” measurement (e.g.,  43' long and -7': cast was seven feet left of the 100' tape, thus the negative seven).
• Data is recorded using pen and 3x5 card by the casting student who then gets back in line.
• All students cast three times and end up with three ordered pairs (e.g., 43,-7; 38,2; 49,15).
• Back in classroom, students make a scatter graph of all data points.
• Pretend that Student Pat is not in class today, and that Student Pat would have made a cast to the average of the data points....find that point.

Options: pick a casting lane that is left/right in the wind, then do the opposite for another set of data points, figure the average effect of the wind on the class's casting results; use three different casting weights.

Line Strength Activity

Materials

Mono fishing line in 2/4/6 pound test

digital fish weighing scales

Doing the Activity

• Remove the pound test information from the spools of line.
• Wrap the end of four feet of line to a wooden dowel; wrap the other end to the 'hook' of the digiscale. (No knots are used in the experiment, only wraps.)
• Two students, each with one end of the experiment, slowly pull the line till it break while a third student reads the scale.
• Record and share all data.
• Do all line/breaks three times.

Options: put an overhand knot in the middle of the line - do the knot test wet and dry; use different brands of six pound line