You’ve probably heard a lot about STEM in the news lately. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math. In the school setting, STEM is an interdisciplinary approach to learning. When these areas are taught in an integrated way,
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students are better able to appreciate how each part is necessary for the success of any complex, real world project. The idea behind STEM education is to prepare students for successful careers in the 21st century workforce. We live in a time of knowledge and information explosion. Our children will be working in jobs that don’t even exist today. One thing which is certain about careers of the future is that they will involve constant change. STEM education seeks to teach students to be creative, innovative, critical thinkers; all skills needed for adapting to change. It engages students in project based learning, where they are often given real world engineering challenges. Teams of students work together to seek multiple solutions to these challenges. They learn that failure is sometimes part of the process and they should seek to try again and improve upon ideas. If students develop skills needed to think deeply and critically, they will be prepared to become the innovators and leaders of our future.
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The students participated in their first STEM team challenges on November 23, 2016. I wanted to keep the ideas engaging and also centered around the ideas of Thanksgiving. The first challenge offered to the students was called "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"
"It's Thanksgiving Day and you suddenly realize that more guest are arriving to your Thanksgiving dinner than you had planned. You must build a table to accommodate all the extra people and all the extra food! You have only a short time to do this in!"
Tools for the job: 5 pieces of printer paper and 12 inches of masking tape.
Using ONLY these tools, you must build a table that will hold the most weight. You have approximately one hour to do this in.
Students picked their own groups of four and began attacking the challenge! The winning group stacked a total of 86 chapter books on top of their table! Way to go!!
"It's Thanksgiving Day and you suddenly realize that more guest are arriving to your Thanksgiving dinner than you had planned. You must build a table to accommodate all the extra people and all the extra food! You have only a short time to do this in!"
Tools for the job: 5 pieces of printer paper and 12 inches of masking tape.
Using ONLY these tools, you must build a table that will hold the most weight. You have approximately one hour to do this in.
Students picked their own groups of four and began attacking the challenge! The winning group stacked a total of 86 chapter books on top of their table! Way to go!!
The second challenge was called the "Mini Mayflower STEM Challenge."
"Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims are ready to discover the new world! Using a 12 inch piece of tin foil and 12 inches of masking tape, build a boat that will carry as much weight as possible. You have 30 minutes!"
Students picked their own partners and quickly got to work! The first place group held 144 pennies + 77 dice for a total of 218 items!! Second place held 124 pennies, and third place held 120 pennies! Great job everyone!
View the pictures below to see how proud the groups were of their work! Some of them realized that failure was part of the learning process, but everyone had a great time and learned some valuable lessons! I was very happy to see students pick partners they normally would not pick! This resulted in some very strong teams- they uncovered some amazing potential!
"Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims are ready to discover the new world! Using a 12 inch piece of tin foil and 12 inches of masking tape, build a boat that will carry as much weight as possible. You have 30 minutes!"
Students picked their own partners and quickly got to work! The first place group held 144 pennies + 77 dice for a total of 218 items!! Second place held 124 pennies, and third place held 120 pennies! Great job everyone!
View the pictures below to see how proud the groups were of their work! Some of them realized that failure was part of the learning process, but everyone had a great time and learned some valuable lessons! I was very happy to see students pick partners they normally would not pick! This resulted in some very strong teams- they uncovered some amazing potential!