As we embark on our journey to make our children and students more critical thinkers and problem solvers, we often come upon really fun activities for students to engage in. (Those who know me are cringing because they know how much I hate the word "fun". Fun implies that nothing is being learned, so I much prefer the word "engaging".)
Unfortunately this hazard transfers to students because the engaging activities that we're asking them to participate in really are...um, well, fun. And that's great, but we want to make sure that we don't lose site of the goal to learn so we need to introduce our R into STEM- Rigor.
How do you Strengthen Rigor in your STEM projects? In this series, we'll explore different ways to keep students engaged yet ensure that they are learning and stretching both in content and STEM Skills.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, lay down your long hair to me! In the story, Rapunzel is taken as a child and forced to live alone in a tower. In this challenge, students will design a zip line that will help Rapunzel to escape her tower.
Materials Kite String Yarn Paperclips Scissors Tape Straws Cargo Other Found Objects
During this challenge, students may work in teams or pairs to design a zip line to help Rapunzel. Students may create any design they want as long as they only use the provided items.
In the Princess and the Pea, the princess must climb up twenty mattresses and twenty featherbeds and to try to get a good night's rest. In this challenge, students will design a parachute to return the princess safely back to the ground in the morning.
Materials Tissue Paper Glue Sticks Scissors Measuring Tape String or Yarn Cargo
When testing their parachutes, students should take care not to stand on tables of chairs. In order to test from a higher height, a stairwell or balcony can be used. If neither are available, a parachute dropper like this that clips onto the ceiling or onto a basketball hoop may be used.
In the story of Stone Soup, a weary traveler wanders into the village and is told that there is no food to eat. So, the traveler brings out his cooking pot and, with the unwitting help of the villagers, makes stone soup. In this challenge, students will design and build a cooking pot that will hold the most soup.
Materials Tissue Paper Making Tape Straws Mini-Marshmallows
The teacher can choose for student to work in teams, pairs, or complete the challenge individually (if you have enough mini-marshmallows!). This is also a great lesson to incorporate estimation and/or volume calculations.
In the tale of Henny Penny, Chicken Little is convinced that the sky is falling. In this challenge, students work in teams to design a device that will protect Chicken Little in the event that the sky begins falling.
Materials Bean Bags Frosted Wheat Cereal (or similar) Yardsticks (one per team) Found Objects
After reading and/or reviewing the story of Henny Penny, students work in teams to design a device that will keep Henny Penny (one piece of frosted wheat cereal) safe when the sky (bean bag) starts falling.
Students will construct their devices and test them by dropping a bean bag from different heights. Bean bags can be grouped together for more weight if needed.
As students recall the fairy tale of the The Billy Goats Gruff, they will remember that the goats attempt to cross a bridge to seek out a greener pasture. In this challenge, students will design a bridge that will hold all three billy goats for more than 30 seconds.
Materials Books Ruler (1 per team) Toothpicks Gumdrops or Mini Marshmallows Large Marshmallows (3 per team) Tape Stopwatches Billy Goats
First, students will "build" their billy goats by cutting out the patterns and taping each one to a large marshmallow. Students will then work in pairs to build their bridge using the toothpicks and gumdrops/mini-marshmallows.
I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Blow Your House Down! In the story of The Three Little Pigs, kids follow the story as our endearing pigs build different houses to try to escape the Big Bad Wolf. In this challenge, students help the three pigs by building a well-designed house that will keep them safe!
Materials Paper or Styrofoam Plates (1 per student) Cotton Balls (3 per student) Painter's Tape (1 roll for the class) Measuring tape (1+ for the class) Other Found Objects Hair Dryer or Fan
After reading or reviewing the story for The Three Little Pigs, students work to design and build a house for their three pigs (cotton balls) that will withstand huffs and puffs from the Big Bad Wolf (hairdryer or fan).
Matric Board,Karachi announced the results of SSC Part I(Science) Group 2012 today after the delay of several weeks. Results can be seen on this link. Total 98,883 students passed the exams.
As we focus on STEM skills that can be achieved through short (or long) duration projects, we're aiming to develop skills that employers are seeking.
According to The 9 Attributes Every Employer Desperately Wants, Forbes magazine examines the skills that make a candidate great. Among the list, some great core STEM skills like natural curiosity, uncompromising excellence, unlimited versatility, self-awareness, and creative problem solving.
This week's challenge allows students to explore the thee core STEM skills as the explore high-impact space debris by designing and building a spacesuit for their astronaut (potato) and testing its effectiveness.
Even though the STEM acronym stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, there are a wide range of skills that this acronym encompasses.
Employers are quick to mention that these are the core skills that they are starting to look for in well qualified candidates. Those "soft skills" are the focus of the STEM Skills Challenges.
This week, students will work with partners to design and build a catapult that will launch mini marshmallows towards a designated target. In this challenge, students will need to make good materials choices as they can only use three of the four materials provided. As students experiment, they will work to build a reliable and well-designed catapult, but also establish consistency in hitting a designated target like a bulls eye. (Teachers may also wish to use small pom poms instead of mini marshmallows.)
This Brown bag series gave me a chance to dig through my files and share some more STEM Challenge oldies-but-goodies.
In each post, I've shared different engineering design projects that are appropriate for a wide age range. All of these activities work to prove that you don't need an endless budget to teach STEM and promote STEM principles and skills.
Here's a recap of the project ideas shared in this series:
This challenge takes a little more time than some others, but it is worth it to watch students build a "stock" hot air balloon then work to design their own hot air balloon that stays aloft longer.
Materials Tissue Paper Glue Sticks Scissors Copy Paper Staplers Hair Dryers (with "low" or "cool" setting) OR Hot Air Popcorn Popper Stopwatches
In this challenge, student begin by building the same hot air balloon. I like to have teams of three for this project, simply because it is more involved and requires students to follow specific directions for this first round. I'm also a bug fan of assigning jobs, so I prefer to divide up the work like this:
Navigator- Reads the directions to the team
Surveyor- Makes any measurements and checks work
Manufacturer- Glues, and assembles materials
Directions can be found all over the internet. I personally like the Junior Balloonist plans or the directions provided by the Civil Air Patrol (who use the directions from Pitsco).
Students follow the directions to build this balloon using the directions and test it, being sure to record their "flights" using 30 seconds of hot air. Once students establish a time to beat (I usually let each team launch once and average their times to get the time to beat.)
Then, students will design their own hot air balloons striving for them to stay aloft longer.
So, what did we learn? Next Generation Science Standards: Planning and Carrying out Investigations, Designing Solutions; Obtaining, Evaluating and Communicating Information CCC- Patterns, Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
CCSS Math: Measurement and Data, Geometry, Ratios and Proportional Relationships
Have you ever played the shooting gallery game at the carnival? Here's a STEM twist on that carnival game for students...a slingshot gallery.
Materials Slingshot Targets* Rubber Bands Craft PomPoms Popsicle Sticks Tape Other Fun Found Objects
*Download the Slingshot Targets sheet and photocopy it onto cardstock. Students will cut the targets apart and fold them to test their slingshot designs.
For this Challenge, students are tasked with building a working slingshot that will knock down the designated targets from a distance of 60 cm (24 inches). Students can work in pairs, but I like each student to design and build their own slingshot. It shows more ownership and also results in each student having their own data to analyze later.
In addition to establishing a required distance to "fling" from, I like to also require other parameters based on age group (Everyone must use at least 4 different supplies.) or based on available supplies to increase the difficulty (Everyone must use a paper cup in their design.) Adjusting these parameters allows me to differentiate the challenge, even within the same classroom.
So, what did we learn? Next Generation Science Standards: Planning and Carrying out Investigations, Designing Solutions; CCC- Patterns, Systems and System Models
Thinkrolls is a super fun and unique educational mobile app (iOS/Android) designed for kids 3-8 yrs old. This app helps students develop cognitive thinking and spatial ability by rolling a ball through a maze while trying to solve puzzles and collect O's. This game is divided up by chapter and as a student progresses the game will get more complex as skills build upon each other in different areas of a Science such as: gravity, speed, friction, etc.
I highly recommend checking out Thinkrolls by clicking here!!!
*The game will be released this Thursday Oct 16th.
In this challenge, students are asked to design a mechanism that will hold a lilypad and help a "frog" jump up into your hand!
Materials Plastic Eggs Frog Patterns Transparent Tape Paint Stirrers (Wooden Rulers or similar) Empty Water bottles Other found items
Students work in pairs to construct a mechanism that will launch their plastic frog to a height tall enough that a student can catch it. Students first construct their frogs by cutting out the pattern and taping it to the front and back of the egg. They should bend down the frog legs so that the frog sits on the lilypad.
Using the supplied materials, students can construct their mechanism. Most students design a sort of see-saw/catapult contraption using the ruler or the paint stirrer, but the items provided by the teacher may frame the challenge differently.
So, what did we learn? Next Generation Science Standards: Asking Questions and Defining Problems, Planning and Carrying out Investigations, Designing Solutions; CCC- Patterns, Cause and Effect, Systems and System Models
CCSS Math: Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Functions,Expressions and Equations
Employers today are looking for students who have learned how to think and how to problem-solve. With the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), we are getting closer to making that a reality, but so many states and districts are still focused on standardized testing (which- surprise- did not make the list of qualities that employers are looking for in qualified candidates.)
This series focuses on those skills as well as the other "soft-skills" that aren't necessarily spelled our in the curriculum, but make students well-rounded problem solvers.
This week's challenge is the Gumdrop Bridge. In this challenge, students work in teams to design and build a bridge that will span 10 inches. Sounds like a pretty easy challenge, but as students start experimenting with their materials of gum drops and toothpicks, they will find that there is more there than beats the eye.
This fun little challenge encourages students to work on team building, collaboration and communication skills- more of those soft skills- that help students become successful in a workplace environment.
Students are used to challenges that ask them to do something the fastest, but how about the slowest? In this scenario, students are challenged to create a marble run where the marble that reaches the end in the slowest time wins.
Materials Marbles Bathroom Cups (3 oz) Sentence Strips Foam Board (20x30) Tape Other Found Objects
This challenge is a great way to get kids thinking more deeply because the challenge is to complete the course the slowest. Each team must create a course for their marble using piece of 20 x 30 foam board. Students can use any found items that you provide, but I like to make sure to include sentence strips because they are thicker than regular paper and can easily be folded into marble tracks. I also like to provide some fun items like bathroom cups, cotton balls, cardboard tubes and paperclips to make creating the course more fun.
So, what did we learn? Next Generation Science Standards: Asking Questions and Defining Problems, Developing and Using Models, Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions; CCC- Patterns, Cause and Effect, Scale, Proportion and Quantity
CCSS Math: Measurement and Data, Geometry, Ratios & Proportional Relationships
Science Bits is a nice Science curriculum for MS/HS aged students. This site has a wide variety of multimedia actives, simulations, videos, and more as students learn about areas/concepts of Science. It has a wide variety of lessons for educators to choose from as well as lots of interactive resources.
I highly recommend checking out Science Bits by clicking here!!!
What if STEM stood for something different? As you know, the actual acronym stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, but aside from content, the concept encompasses many more essential skills like: problem solving, critical thinking, team-building, self-esteem, self-motivation and more.
At a recent symposium in the Seattle area, business leaders were surveyed regarding the skills, attitudes, attributes, and aspirations that they feel are the most important to the success of students in the future. Among the results?
Critical thinking, learning, and analytical problem solving
Communication
Adaptability
Collaboration and teamwork
Self-direction and self-awareness
Technical skills and computer literacy
Fundamentals of education including math, science, and English
Creativity
Cultural competence and global awareness
Emotional intelligence
This series on STEM Skills Challenges will harness the power of STEM challenges and focus on these essential success skills that our students need to be effective in the STEM workforce.
As we embark on our journey to make our children and students more critical thinkers and problem solvers, we often come upon really fun activities for students to engage in. (Those who know me are cringing because they know how much I hate the word "fun". Fun implies that nothing is being learned, so I much prefer the word "engaging".)
