STEAM Cycle 29

Kindergarten-Animal Maze

The Animal Maze Game is designed to teach students how to write a basic set of instructions similar to coding a computer program.  As a team, the students must help an animal get to its food and shelter.  This game will prepare students for creating animations using ScratchJr.

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1st Grade-Take Cover (Evaluate)

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.  During this cycle, the students evaluated their designs and looked for ways to improve them.

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2nd Grade-Save the City (Evaluate)

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.  Using the iPads, students recorded the investigation and spent this cycle reviewing the data and video to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their designs.

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3rd Grade-Seed Solutions (Evaluate)

The students completed their Educreations (iPad app) presentation with photographs, text, and a voice-recorded explanation.

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4th Grade-Reaction Test 1

Using the Tynker app, the students followed step-by-step directions to create a game that allowed the player to test their reaction time.  The students chose a background and actors that would randomly move around the screen.  Each time the player tapped the character, a score would be recorded with a reaction time (fast, medium, slow) displayed at the end of the game.

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5th Grade-Disease Detectives (Present)

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.  The presentations were shared with the rest of the class as students defended their diagnoses.