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.
If you use NASA as a STEM resource like I do, then you can breathe a sign of relief that NASA has compiled all of their resources into one easy to use place- NASA Wavelength.
Designed specifically for teachers and students, this easy to use portal allows users to search by Audience or Topic. To further refine results, users can filter by unique categories such as Instructional Strategies, Learning Time, and Materials Cost (always important to classroom teachers!) among others.
In addition to these features, NASA has added a social media aspect and has provided the ability to share content with sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and LinkedIn (as well as good old fashioned email). This is a giant step to making these resources accessible to teachers and the K-12 audience.
In this series, we're focused on the soft skills that employers desire in top candidates. Otherwise known as 21st century skills or the 4C's- collaboration, critical thinking, creativity, and communication- these skills rank consistently at the top of the list.
Here's a recaps of the STEM Skills Challenges that will help students to further develop their soft skills.
Sparticl is a new site I just found out about that is excellent for finding STEM based resources. There are over 2500 curated resources on a wide variety of subjects. Best of all a user can login and curate their own lists of resources and even vote/comment on them.
I highly recommend checking out Sparticl by clicking here!!!
For my Pinterest board on Educational Resources click here.
Throughout this series, we've been talking about the importance of soft skills and how many employers are looking for these key skills when interviewing and hiring.
Recently, a Gallup poll conducted a survey asking Americans whether soft skills should be taught in K-12 schools. When it comes to teaching critical thinking skills, an overwhelming 80% of those surveyed believe they should be taught. The other 4C's communication, collaboration, and creativity were highly rated as well.
This week's STEM Skills Challenge will help to build those skills as students design and build a sailboat that will "sail" at least four feet in under one minute. The catch? Students will only be allowed to use paperclips, index cards, aluminum foil and tape. Once teams have designed their boats, students will test them on a table top or a tile floor by placing them in front of a fan. Hopefully, the team has collaborated on a successful design and it's smooth sailing!
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.
USA Today College and other leading publications report that employers strongly value soft skills. The reason? Many employers say that they can teach the content that is required for a particular position, but can't teach those skills that take time to develop and mature like: teamwork and interpersonal skills, problem solving and analytical skills, and written and verbal communication.
In this week's STEM Skills Challenge, students are challenged to build a structure that will support a full can of soup. It may sound like an easier challenge, but with only craft sticks, paper, paperclips and glue at their disposal, students will need to work effectively as a team and use their problem solving skills to plan, design and build their structures.
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.
Of those surveyed, 92% agree that there is a job skills gap and 44% of respondents say the gap is in "soft skills". (And not to digress, but the second most common answer at 22% was lack of technical skills.)
Specifically, the article defines soft skills as communication, critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration. They didn't use the phrase "21st century skills", but I'm sure you recognize them as such.
So, for this week's STEM Skills Challenge, we're going to build a better boat and build our 4C's (soft skills). In this challenge, students will use the provided supplies (plastic wrap, straws, tape, and washers) to design and build a boat that will hold 10 one inch diameter washers for at least 30 seconds without sinking. Water will be required to test the boats, but with inquisitive scientists who are focusing on the 4C's, you shouldn't get wet on this ride!
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.
As you'll note from pretty much all of my other posts, I'm a huge proponent of STEM in the younger grades. So, connecting STEM through literature is a natural extension (and quite a powerful tool). This connection helps to improve reading skills, yet also enhance creativity and critical thinking skills.
In this series, we will further examine the connection between literature- specifically fairy tales- and STEM. Each week we'll take a look at a favorite fairy tale, make a connection to STEM and tie each one to the NGSS Engineering Design Standards.
Join me next week for a look at our first fairy tale!
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, but where does Reading and Literature fit in? All of us know that a great lesson is multi-dimensional and cross-curricular but few of us have time to endlessly Google until we come up with the perfect book for to engage students or supplement a STEM lesson.
Fear not! Here's a rather comprehensive collection of pictures books to enhance math and science concepts in your STEM lessons and to help bring concepts alive!
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:
In aiming to provide students with engaging STEM challenges that push the envelope on developing students' critical thinking skills, this series also aims to develop the STEM skills that employers seek in the workforce.
This week's challenge is the Plastic Cup Pyramid. Using a rubber band and some string, students will fashion an apparatus that will transfer plastic cups from their current configuration into a pyramid. This is a great challenge to build communication and teamwork skills. For teams that finish early, reverse the challenge and have students complete it without talking. Now that's a challenge!
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
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been sharing the importance of teaching STEM skills and weaving them through your curriculum. They teach our students how to be persistent problem solvers, how to deepen 21st century skills and how to become leading contenders in the workforce.
Forbes Magazine researched the 10 most critical skills that employers are looking for in candidates and found that the majority of these critical skills are STEM skills. The top three skills? Critical Thinking, Complex Problem Solving, and Judgement and Decision Making.
This week, students will get to practice all three of those skills as they work on this week's Skills Challenge. Students will work with a team to build a sturdy table out of nothing more than newspaper and masking tape that will hold the most weight. Much like the real world, teams will be challenged to use only the resources provided and work within design and time requirements. May the best team of designers win!
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
Say those words to your students and you're sure to get a reaction. Who doesn't want to have a little fun by designing and building a marshmallow slingshot? But this isn't just a time-filler; it's a great little STEM challenge for kids of all ages. Using some basic supplies, students can review the Engineering Design Process and embark in this design, build, test project.
Start with some basic supplies for each team:
2 toilet-paper tubes (or 1 paper-towel tube, cut in half)
Tape
Single-hole punch (optional)
Pencil pen or marker
2 thin rubber bands
Scissors
Marshmallow (Large)
Then, let the designing begin!Challenge your students to design and create a marshmallow launcher (slingshot, trebuchet, or whatever) that will meet your design requirements.
What are your design requirements? We've already outlined the required supplies (and you can modify these based on availability), so we just need to define the challenge. Should we design a launcher that:
will launch a marshmallow the furthest? (distance)
will hit a designated target? (accuracy)
will keep the marshmallow aloft the longest? (time)
Or, work with students to design a challenge of your own. Whatever the challenge, students and teacher alike are sure to have an engaging STEM lesson. For an inspirational video to introduce this lesson, visit the PBS Kids Design Squad page. (There are also detailed instructions for building a specific kind of launcher, but that takes the fun out of the challenge!)
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".)
