Simple machines. Ick.  Shockingly, simple machines don’t excite me. Blasphemy for a science teacher to say, but to me they are just so……….simple.  And by simple I mean boring. I hide it well from my students, but it is true. Blah.

This week I’ve been surrounded by talk of simple machines through sharing ideas with a coworker and listening to my son fully immerse himself in a simple machine unit. Simple Machines are everywhere I turn and everywhere you look. It’s true. Yawn.

Give me the latest, greatest electronic device, a car that parks itself, or a robot that cooks. Now that’s exciting! With our world becoming increasingly complex, is it necessary to keep studying concepts that are so, well, simple? Aren’t we way passed simple machines in our modern, technologically savvy world?

Yesterday I came across a video of a Dad who solved the problem of the always-challenging-for-a-dad ponytail. He suctions his daughter’s hair into the hose of a vacuum and gets a perfect pony every time. Brilliant! Obvious. Simple. I recently saw a picture posted on FB of two quarreling kids sharing an oversized shirt. On the front of the shirt their mother wrote “our get along shirt.” Brilliant! Obvious. Simple.

Today I learned about an invention called LifeStraw. It’s a straw that filters water. You stick it in any river, lake, ocean, or pond and suck. Voila! Just like that clean water. Brilliant! Obvious. Simple. Approximately 700 million people do not have access to clean water. Could this be their simple solution?

Perhaps simple is good.

Perhaps simple is not so boring after all.

Photo courtesy Vestegaard Frandsen, Inc.

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Suzanne Edwards teaches 5th Grade Science at Trinity School.