Accepting innovation

This post actually was supposed to be done yesterday, but it was a long day... I'm doing it this morning instead- expect another post later today!

In my class I am always encouraging the students to be creative, to think outside the box, to do things differently. I think the hardest part of having this mindset is accept students creative and innovative ideas even when you don't think they are that good. Example-
Three boys in my 5th period class have formed a group and are constructing a water bottle rocket. Water bottle rockets do NOT have that much trust to begin with (pressurized water is it), so the weight of the rocket shouldn't be that much. These boys found this really long tube in my cabinet with the tubes (meant to be cut and used for multiple rockets) and decided to stick the entire thing on top of their rocket. Then they found ANOTHER tube and stuck it on the top as well. What resulted is a water bottle rocket about 4 feet tall (almost as tall as my 5th period student assistant). While I do not think this is a very good idea, it is definitely different than anything else my students have ever done. So, I allowed them to make the rocket. They are SUPER excited about it, and yesterday even developed a parachute to deploy (I don't think it will go high enough to need a parachute, but I didn't discourage them from coming up with the parachute). I figure as long as their excited about the project, on task, and coming up with creative and innovative ideas, they're going to learn from the process.