STEAM Cycle 5

Kindergarten-The Biggest Excavator

Using MysteryScience.com, the students learned about and explored the movements required for big machines to push and pull, making our jobs easier.  After we watched some excavators at work and engaged in discussion about pushes and pulls, the students drew pictures of real or imagined machines at work and identified whether the machine pushes or pulls.

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1st Grade-Animal Adaptations: Animal Coverings

Students investigated different animal coverings to understand that different body coverings provide different types of protection.  We participated in a scientific investigation, gauging the temperature of feathers, hair, and fur at room temperature and the same coverings after sitting on ice.  Each student colored a bar graph to show the investigation results.  After the investigation, students searched nonfiction books for animals and charted them by covering.

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2nd Grade-Mad Hatter

Using MysteryScience.com, the 2nd graders learned about different properties of materials used for clothing.  Through discussion we determined the main reasons (aside from the embarrassing ones, of course) people wear clothing.  We also discussed the types of materials that are best for absorbing and repelling water.  As teams, the students designed a hat to protect them from the elements, that could be made if stuck on a deserted island.

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3rd Grade-Flight Test

For this cycle the students ran flight tests to see which type of paper airplane could fly the furthest and which could do acrobatics.  The students each took turns throwing the airplane over a set of measuring tapes.  They had to do some math to determine how far the plane flew.  Looking at the average distances, students determined that the long, narrow planes went the furthest, while the short and wide planes were more about dips and turns.  We talked about the types of planes we would see at air shows and watched the Blue Angels doing a few tricks, too.

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4th Grade-Crayons Rock

The 3 types of rocks and the rock cycle were introduced using an experiment with crayons.  Students learned how rocks are broken down, compressed, and melted to form sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.  Using Educreations on the iPads, the students took photographs of each step of the process, then made video recordings to explain the rock cycle.

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5th Grade-The Copy Machine

As a class, the students explored drag and drop coding directions to draw shapes on graph paper.  Once we had a basic understanding of how drag and drop coding works, the students created an account on Code.org and started going through the tutorials to draw shapes online.