Recently, some of our STEAM Punks joined us at a Teacher In-Service. Through rotations, they helped teachers explore with a number of areas we had been working on in STEAM Club. Some taught the challenges and movements of Dash and Dot, the extreme awesomeness that can be completed through a Makey Makey, and how to create your own character through Bloxels. What great leaders!
We spent all of second semester exploring independent studies. We have students inventing a dust accumulator for a combine, coding Dash from Wonder Workshop, building and coding with Lego WeDo, creating the board game Operation with MakeyMakey as well as the game DanceDanceRevolution with MakeyMakey, designing holiday decorations for the needy, building entire worlds in video game creator Bloxels Builder, engineering and coding Meccanoid robots and dinosaurs, sewing log cabin quilts and row fence quilts, hand sewing stuffed animals, sewing dresses and pillows, building a robotic softball bat, and developing student websites about honeybees and endangered animals.
While there was a lot of organization on the teachers' parts for purchasing all the needed supplies, there was far less needed from us during the actual student work time. Because these projects were the students' main interests as well as their choice, they really took the learning and ran with it. Mrs. Beck and I kept looking at each other feeling guilty that we weren't doing more, but that's a true sign of authentic learning, right? We did make a giant push the last two weeks to make sure all projects were finished for the community event, but other than that, everything happened at the students' pace. With all the new tools we had to learn and the number of students we have, it worked best for us to break into stations for November and December. Kids got to explore www.code.org, Goldiblox, K'Nex, MakeyMakey, Bloxels, Dash & Dot, 3D Printing, sewing, Legos, and more. Each week, they tried a different tool for an hour. This will help students know what they are most interested in for independent studies second semester.
Our STEAM Punks Club has partnered with professors from MU to build and foster a love for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math within our makers. Today, we were visited by one of our partners. Mrs. Annie Arnone from NASA discussed the world of engineering. We learned that engineers are regular men and women who want to make the World great! Our mission for the day: Solve a life problem through the use of magnets.
Thursday was our second creation session with our makers, and they were excited! We presented makers with a question: How could you work with a group to design a roller coaster that amusement parks would want to purchase for their own parks? What is going to be unique about your roller coaster?
Preparation: We purchased a template that assisted students in building columns, beams, supports and more. Using Card Stock (stronger than normal paper), we copied all of the templates off on different colored paper according to the piece it was labeled. A big shout out to Mrs. Hand for helping us prepare the materials! Makers were broken into groups, and each group was given the same materials. Let the Creations Begin: Makers took charge! They worked together to decide whether they wanted the tallest, widest, loopiest, roundest (etc.) roller coasters. Given foam board, they set out to divide and conquer. Some worked on building the paper beams, columns, and supports while other shaped the foundation to fit their unique roller coaster. Leadership and teamwork took place without teacher prompting. What a neat experience to watch! The makers will be working on their paper roller coasters over the next few weeks. We will keep you posted on their progress! :) Sept 2016 -- What were the odds that our first STEAM Club meeting would happen on International Dot Day? We just let the kids be Makers today. They all made their own design with Dots after reading the book. It was nice to get to know their personalities and styles through this. We think this will be a great group to work with!
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Sophie C.This is the log of our adventures with the Chilli STEAM Punks! Archives
June 2019
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