Blog Archives

STEAM Cycle 26 & 27

2/24/2017

Kindergarten-Design a Cast

The diagnosis from the doctor is in and Angelina has broken her arm. The students worked together through the engineering process to design a cast for a member of their group. The students learned about criteria and constraints as they had to make sure the cast was strong, light, comfortable and water resistant. They had a limited amount of time and supplies to create the cast.

1st Grade-Take Cover 1

In this design problem, students designed a covering for a playground to protect students from UV exposure. They used UV-sensitive beads and a UV flashlight to determine the effectiveness of their design to protect students playing on the playground.

2nd Grade-Save the City

The students worked individually to read a map of a city and identify homes that may be in the path of a landslide. Working in small groups, the students designed and tested a solution to prevent erosion of the hill and save the homes.

3rd Grade-Seed Solutions 2

At the end of our last lesson, the students began growing pea plant seeds. Using 3 generations of seeds, the students identified the color of the stems and determined the dominant (purple) and recessive (green) stem colors. Using the Punnett Squares, students determined the parent plant genotypes and how these genotypes were passed on to the crossed plants creating the possibility of green and purple stems in the 3rd generation of plants. The students created an Educreations (iPad app) presentation with photographs, text, and a voice-recorded explanation.

4th Grade-Data Collection & Display (4)

Using the Tynker iPad App, the students are learning to code their first game by following step-by-step directions. The students coded the characters in the game to respond in an effort to gather data. Each time one of the characters touched another character, a count was displayed on the screen.

5th Grade-Disease Detectives

There is an illness spreading at our fictional school. Using the Patient Information Sheet, the students made correlations between the students in the class and the activities they participated in together. Using data from the sheet, we determined how long the fictional students had been sick and how they interacted with one another to pass along the illness. Using Educreations (an iPad app), the students created a diagram or flow chart to illustrate how the illness was spread and made conclusions about Patient Zero.

STEAM Cycle 25

2/14/2017

Kindergarten-Why So Many Bones?

The students performed an inquiry investigation to help them understand why each of our fingers have 3 bones. The students timed themselves putting pegs into a foam board in the first test, then taped their fingers to simulate having only 1 bone per finger and performed the same test. The students learned that Scientist refers to a person who asks questions, makes observations, and investigates ideas in order to acquire knowledge and/or solve problems.

1st Grade-Mystery Beads

In this inquiry experience, the students learned about the sun's Ultraviolet rays. We discussed the ways the sun helps us, and ways we can protect ourselves from harmful UV rays. The students received "mystery beads" that look white. After testing the beads with heat and light, the beads remained white, but when exposed to UV light, the beads changed color.

2nd Grade-Investigating Erosion (2)

While conducting an investigation using a sand model, the students observed and explained ways that wind, water, and natural disasters change the shape of the Earth. In this lesson, students recorded their observations and conclusion to the findings in their Launch Logs.

3rd Grade-Seed Solutions

4th Grade-Data Collection & Display (3)

5th Grade-Mystery at School (3)

There is an illness spreading at our fictional school. The students learned about bacteria and viruses as they distinguished between communicable and noncommunicable diseases. By reading through the patient information, the students found correlations between each student's symptoms and communicable diseases to diagnose the students. In the next lesson, students will begin looking at connections between the students to determine Patient Zero and how the illness spread.

STEAM Cycle 24

2/8/2017

Kindergarten-Bone Puzzle 2

As we move through this unit about the structure and function of the human body, the students are following the story of a fictional character named Angelina. She fell at recess and hurt her arm. As the story progresses, Angelina visits the hospital to have an x-ray taken of her arm. The students learned about x-rays and worked through a puzzle of the hand bones. Each student made a handprint with white paint and glued the puzzle pieces to their handprint.

1st Grade-Patterns of the Stars 2

After learning about the stars and their life cycles, the students used the iPad app Star Chart to investigate stars further and learn about constellations. The students chose one constellation to draw in their science logs.

2nd Grade-Investigating Erosion

While conducting an investigation using a sand model, the students observed and explained ways that wind, water, and natural disasters change the shape of the Earth.

3rd Grade-Traits Through the Generations 2

As we continue to learn about genes, the students were introduced to 2 identical "parent" plants. Although the plants look identical, the students learned that each parent plant contributes a dominant or recessive gene. Students travelled through 8 stations, each representing a phenotype (a trait such as stem length, color, type of leaves, etc.). At each station, the students determined the genotype that would be passed from each parent creating a dominant or recessive phenotype for the baby plant. After completing the stations, students used paper cutouts to illustrate the baby plant and recorded their observations in their STEAM journals.

4th Grade-Data Collection & Display 2

Using the Tynker iPad App, the students are learning to code their first game by following step-by-step directions. The students learned about x and y axes, how to add characters to the game and code actions the characters can follow.

5th Grade-Mystery at School 2

STEAM Cycle 23

2/1/2017

Kindergarten-Bone Puzzle

1st Grade-Patterns of the Stars

The students conducted an investigation with a flashlight and some aluminum foil to mimic the night sky and understand why we can only see stars at night. We also watched an informational video about the life cycle of stars.

2nd Grade-Changing Earth's Surface

Using the Canvas app, students connected to our PLTW activity and followed a presentation to observe and take notes about the changes water, wind and natural disasters cause to land over time.

3rd Grade-Traits Through the Generations

4th Grade-Data Collection & Display

With experience in how computers store data, students looked at different data sets to make conclusions. We had an introduction to Tynker, an iPad app that allows students to create their own games and animations using visual blocks to code. Understanding data sets will be put into practice as the students create a game that will track data and represent that data in a graph.

5th Grade-Mystery at School 1

There is an illness spreading at our fictional school. The students learned about bacteria and viruses as they distinguished between communicable and noncommunicable diseases.