STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and we have been practicing some STEM activities in room 402!
STEM activities promote collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving skills, and communication. Girls tend to want to get something right the very first time, but STEM shows that mistakes are not failures but opportunities to grow, redesign, and get better!!
The STEM process is...
1. Ask-How can I solve this problem using a limited amount of resources?
2. Imagine-Brainstorm with a small group the best solution to the problem.
3. Plan-Sketch out the solution!
4. Create-Build it, make it, test out your planned design.
5. Improve-Redesign, rebuild, and make it stronger and better! *This step really promotes the growth mindset for girls-that you are not supposed to be perfect the first time*
Here are the STEM activities that happened in room 402 :)
STEM CHALLENGE #1-Thanksgiving Table Challenge
Problem: You have you too many people invited over for a Thanksgiving dinner, and the table is too small!
Challenge Question: Can you build your family a Thanksgiving table that will hold the most weight??
Goal: To build a Thanksgiving table using limited materials (3 pieces of brown construction paper and 12 inches of masking tape) to hold the most "food" (candy corn). The winning team will build a table to hold the most pieces of candy corn before the table breaks!!
The class record was 211 pieces of candy corn!! Way to go girls!!
After the activity, we reflected about the STEM learning process and what we learned about being problem solvers and risk takers!! (This is something that we say every morning in our "Classroom Pledge.)
STEM CHALLENGE #2-BOSTON TEA PARTY CHALLENGE
Materials: Popsicle Sticks, wax paper, masking tape, yarn, scissors, glue, and the tea bag
After the designs were planned and the crates were built, we timed how long the crate would stay in the cold water without the tea bag leaking and making the water darker!
Every group made the tea bag last at least 1 minute in the water!!
When this group couldn't make their crate stay together with glue, they used tape instead and broke the popsicle sticks in half. They quoted-"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.." when talking about their crate! Way to be problem solvers, ladies! :)
Reflection Activity Sheet-What was challenging? What worked? What was successful? Why??
Yes, we are girls-we love wearing bows and chevron, but we are also MIGHTY engineers, PROBLEM-SOLVERS, and RISK-TAKERS!!
For more information about STEM and girls, check out the parent resource "Sci-Girls" http://www.pbs.org/parents/scigirls/stemsantional-resources/
when we were building our tables it was hard and then peyton said we should make a box so we did and we stuffed it with paper and started counting and by now we were close to two hundred and we ended getting two hundred and eleven pieces of candy corn and we had the most out of the class WE BEAT MR.CARROLS CLASS YES!
ReplyDeletebeing a problem solver is really important because you get smarter. Last week when we done the projects, my favorite one was thee Tea Act because it was cool that they all lasted for one whole minute
ReplyDeleteWay to be problem solvers and risk takers, Zion and Kaitlyn!! I am so proud of you girls! :)
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