STREAM Fall News Letter

STREAM Newsletter Fall 2020

Our Vision:

The STREAM committee is dedicated to developing a program that is inquiry based and that will develop students into confident, self-directed learners. In a safe and supportive environment our students will be engaged in a group problem solving with applicable solutions that develops independent thinking while fostering collaboration. Students will have opportunities to gain read world experience through community partnerships and internships. Our goal is to combine science, technology, research, engineering, art, and mathematics to prepare our students to be Life Ready.

Want to get STREAM-y?

When you think about using a STREAM lesson for the first time. Start small until you feel comfortable. Remember it doesn't have to go exactly as planned. The students will be engaged and learning. Always remember to reflect on how things went when you are done. Make notes on what went well, what didn't, and where you can make modifications for the next time you use the lesson. STREAM lessons fall into 4 broad categories.

Structured Inquiry: Teachers lead students, and everyone works together to find a solution.

Controlled Inquiry- Teacher provides the context, goals ideas, and tools and students take it from there.

Guided Inquiry- Teacher provides topics and questions and the student figures it out in their own way, using whatever means they discover. This will be different for each student.

Free Inquiry- Students make all the decisions, what they want to discover, how they will discover it, and how they will communicate what they have learned.

RemoTe or Hybrid, These are our top fall picks to try in your classroom!

NGSS: The Importance of 3-Dimensional Learning

Free STEM Lessons that Work Well with Remote Learning

STEM Activites for Distance Learning

Green Our Planet STEM Ideas

Math and Science Investigative Learning Experiences

STEM: YOGA and Movement

30+ Virtual Field Trips

What’s STREAMing at...

Chase, Cooke, & KLR

K-5 teachers and students have been given full access to Generation Genius to use in their science lessons! This program provides teachers with entertaining videos, engaging discussion questions, and a variety of follow-up activities.

A research study was completed by WestEd with 439 fourth grade students at 12 schools about their experience with Generation Genius - here are the results!

Chase

Cooke

Students in Mrs. Wells and Mrs. O'Sullivan's kindergarten class have been enjoying reciting, singing and performing the "Five Little Pumpkins" rhyme. On Halloween, it was time for a STEM challenge: to use different materials to build a gate that holds five pumpkins.

In late September and early October, Mrs. Moore’s kindergarten students learned about caterpillars & butterflies. Each day, the students observed how the caterpillars in their classroom would change on a daily basis -- from chrysalis to monarch butterflies. As a follow-up activity the students then made their own butterflies. The students went outside and collected leaves and then glued them on a toilet paper roll. They also added eyes and antennas to complete their butterflies.

KLR

Mr. Scecina (5th Grade) has some new class pets...brown trout! This program is called "Trout in the Classroom". Stay tuned for some close-up, underwater pictures! "Trout in the Classroom is a conservation-oriented environmental education program for elementary, middle, and high school students. Through the school year, students raise trout from eggs to fry and then release them into approved cold water streams and lakes. This act of raising, monitoring, and caring for young trout fosters a conservation ethic within participating students and promotes an understanding of their shared water resources."

RJK Middle School

This is a sample of our 6th grader, Shivam Patel coding using Python

Click the link to play a game coded in JavaScript by Shivam Patel, one of our 6th graders. Click HERE to play the game.

Monticello High School

Even though this section is focused on High School, many of the ideas shared here are for ELEMENTARY and MIDDLE SCHOOL alike.

Modeling concepts in science or math and offering hands-on engaging activities can be difficult in our remote learning environment. PhET simulations may offer just what you need. PhET simulations are free and web based. The only downside is that they may not all run on your device. Check these out, just to sample a few.

FRACTIONS: http://www2.epsd.us/robotics/phet/en/simulation/fraction-matcher.html

NATURAL SELECTION: http://www2.epsd.us/robotics/phet/en/simulation/natural-selection.html

ACID/BASE SOLUTIONS: http://www2.epsd.us/robotics/phet/en/simulation/acid-base-solutions

https://www.explorelearning.com/

If you haven't tried Gizmos, you're missing out. This guided inquiry based program helps students to develop concepts in your class. Click the link and watch the video. There is a free trial offered and definitely a resource you want to explore!

STEM activities, even the smallest tasks, can have a deep impact on our students understanding and can provide a much needed hands-on activity to our remote learners. Here is an example to watch of a short and simple STEM activity utilized to address misconceptions in my content area. You can apply this to almost anything you demonstrate in your classroom to convey a concept.

Free Fall Flicker

Check out these great experiments students can conduct from home! Safety first of course!

Steve Spangler Science

Principals of Health Science class used lap books to explore various health related careers and then present them to their peers in a live class by sharing their screen. They also created a Flip Grid for extra credit. Lap books are awesome because they can be made from a variety of materials and can be used at any grade level.

Top Left shows work done by Luke (Orthopedic Surgeon), top right is work done by Cavan (Veterinarian) and work done by Ava (Registered Nurse)

Medical Interventions class is currently working on a 3-D model of the ear and making Flip Grid recordings of how sound travels. They will then use these models to investigate a particular case study they are assigned and present to the rest of the class how their patient's hearing is being affected using their model.

In a future project that we are are beginning to plan out now, the Medical Interventions class will study prosthetic limb technologies. They will design and build a prototype for a prosthetic arm. Medical Interventions will work with Mr. Shewmaker's computer science class to build programmable device that will accomplish the same task. The prosthetic needs to be able to grab a plastic cup of water on a table, bring it to the person's mouth so they can take a sip, and then set it back down on the table. We are really excited about this project and can wait to show you the final results in early spring.

Prototypes of a prosthetic arm

C++ Programming has used the website repl.it to build a simulation of a vending machine. Here is a sample of the coding and the program running.

Here is a small portion of one of my student's code written in C++.

Here is the same program's result of running through one time.

The Engineering Design Process is the heart of STREAM

Engineering Design Process

Appreciate

Credits:

Created with an image by Elijah M. Henderson - "Orange leaves over a road"