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STREAM Wellness Newsletter Spring/Summer 2021

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.

We are dedicating our winter newsletter to wellness. Don’t wait until you’ve reached your goal to be proud of yourself. Be proud of every step you take toward reaching that goal.

our top SUMMER Health and Wellness picks

Summer STEM Activities to do at home

What’s STREAMing at...

Chase, Cooke, & KLR

The Elementary Virtual STREAM FAIR has come to a close. Each grade level was given a problem to work out and solve using various materials. Here are the problems posed to each grade:

Kindergarten - Construct a Rainbow Bridge that will hold the heaviest "Pot of Gold". Participating classes: Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Ferentinos, Mrs. Mentnech, and Mrs. Crofoot
1st Grade - Construct a Waterproof Critter Shelter. Participating classes: Mrs. DePaolo
2nd Grade - Construct a handheld pollinator that will transfer the most pollen to the flower. Participating classes: Mrs. Furman and Mrs. Crofoot
3rd Grade - Construct a wind powered maze to push a marble through in the fastest time. Participating classes: Mrs. Kavleski
5th Grade - Construct a protective container that will keep an egg from breaking when dropped. Participating classes: Mrs. Bowles & Mrs. Futrell, Mr. Scecina, Mrs. Wendt, and Mrs. Kreegar

Thank you to all of the students that particpated in the stream fair!

Chase

Mrs. Andersen and Mrs. Oakley's third grade classes created and submitted their own STREAM fair projects. The students researched about animal adaptations and the different environments that animals live in. Then, they took a class trip to the Mamakating Environmental Education Center to learn about the animals that live in the Basha Kill and their adaptations. For their final project, they each researched a different habitat, the animals that live there, and the adaptations that allow them to survive or what may make it difficult for them to survive. Then, each student created their own animal that would survive in their researched habitat. The students final presentation included their water color paintings, clay creations of their animals, and their animal's adaptations! These classes and students were awarded FIRST PLACE for their exceptional work!

Mrs. Andersen's Class
Mrs. Oakley's Class
The second graders at the Chase school learned about the human body. They made replicas of their spines and hands, showing how bones and muscles work, and what happens to their food in the stomach. They also made brain hats!

KLR

The adolescent brown trout fingerlings will be released into the Neversink River at a stocking site in Rock Hill. The intersection of Holiday Mountain Rd and Bridgeville Road is where students, who have been studying the trout over the year, will release the fish. It is a catch and release zone, so if the fish remain in the area, they will not be caught for keeps in adulthood.

RJK Middle school and Monticello high school partnered with COGNIA for accreditation and certification as STEM schools

We are excited about our partnership with COGNIA and will be working this summer on our plan for the upcoming school year to work with our teachers to become accredited and certified STEM schools at the middle and high school level.

RJK Middle School

Virtual STREAM Fair @RJK

Introduction/Background

Due to its incredible chemical properties, water is often considered the "universal solvent." It can mix with organic (natural) or synthetic (human-made) substances. Some of these products easily break down in water, while others break down very slowly, or perhaps even never. Water naturally cleans itself via filtration through the ground and evaporation via the water cycle.

At one time, communities disposed of their waste and garbage directly into lakes, streams and oceans. Now, most countries require that unclean (contaminated, polluted) water be treated before it is permitted to be released into natural bodies of water like lakes, rivers and oceans.

Generally, three different ways are used to treat raw sewage (waste) water before it is released. First, the liquid is given time to settle and then is exposed to oxygen by stirring or bubbling air through it (aeration). This helps many harmful organic pollutants react with oxygen and change into carbon dioxide and water. Second, the liquid is filtered to remove the particulate matter. Third, it is treated chemically with chlorine or ozone to kill any remaining harmful components such as bacteria.

Use the following links for inspiration and ideas:

The Dirty Water Project

Water Filtration Project: Make Your Own Water Filters

the problem

1. Environmental, chemical and civil engineers work together to improve existing water treatment systems and design new ones to ensure that we have clean water both now and in the future.

2. Today, let's imagine that we are engineers working for the Clean Water Environmental Engineering Company.

3. The company has been asked to design a new water filtration system for a small community with a polluted water supply using limited or everyday materials.

4. Your job as one of the engineers working on this project is to focus on the second step in the water treatment process, FILTERING. You don’t have to use all the different TREATMENT TYPE of FILTERS on page 3 of the WORKSHEET. However, keep in mind, the best filtering system will be used in the small community.

a. Use sight and smell to identify pollutants in a water sample.

b. Explore what types of pollutants are removed from water by aeration and filtration.

c. Design, build and test a water filtration system.

d. Explain the role of engineers in water treatment systems.

Ready or Not: Artificial Intelligence (AI) At RJK 21-22

My name is Joel B. Jerume, a doctoral candidate and STEM educator at Robert J. Kaiser Middle School. I am a STEM/STEAM educational research scientist who currently submerges in the process of designing innovative learning environments by using bleeding-edge learning technologies: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Coding, Deep Learning (DL), Internet of Things (LoT) to help learners develop science content mastery, critical thinking, scientific reasoning abilities, and knowledge transfer. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming a part of our daily lives and quickly growing as a field of work in which young people can build careers.

In our RJK STEAM/STEM lab, students will be introduced to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and enable students to build intelligent systems that see, speak, and understand. A few weeks ago, the RJK community was fortunate and grateful to have received a tremendous donation from Google for our STEM/STEAM program. Google donated over a thousand AIY Google Kits to our school. I want to thank my great friend and countryman, Dr. Wednaud Renelus, an exemplary STEM educator, in New York City, for linking me with Google.

How did it all start? Dr. Renelus does an excellent job using social media to share his students' projects. I was blown away by his students' projects with the google kits in the Alchemist Club Studios. So, I reached out and shared with him how much I would love to introduce the AIY Kits at RJK. Being a great friend, he is a few weeks later he sent an email to his google contact introducing me and CC me on it. A few days later, I received an email from google asking me to share any documents, artifacts (pics and videos) of my STEM/STEAM experience with students, and what I plan to do with the AIY Kits, and how many kits will I need? By the way, there are two different google AIY Kits available, AIY Vision and AIY Voice. The AIY Voice Kit is a do-it-yourself intelligent speaker that students can experiment with voice recognition and the Google Assistant.

Monticello High School

Virtual STREAM Fair at MHS

THE PROBLEM:

How would you sustain yourself and your family if you had to live off the grid? The term “off the grid” is defined as not requiring utilities, such as electricity, water, sewer, natural gas, heat, and other services. To truly live off the grid means a house operates without the assistance of any public utility service. To achieve this independence, one’s electricity needs to be on site and powered by renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, or geothermal.

a. Provide food?

b. Provide shelter?

c. Provide electricity?

d. Provide heat?

e. Provide soap, cleaning supplies, medicines, etc.

VIRTUAL STREAM WINNERS AT THE HIGH SHOOL

We had students submit projects in grades 9 through 11. The STREAM committee judged the projects using the rubric that was given to the students. We were impressed with the creativity, thoroughness, and design process that the students used to solve the problem. They chose one area of the problem to solve and presented their work.

Cavan L., an 11th grader chose to focus on how she would provide food while living off the grid. She did a great job in providing for all basic food groups, as well as obtaining water. Cavan earned 1st place in her grade level. Well done Cavan! We had four 9th graders compete, the majority of them chose to do food and water acquisition, while one 9th grader chose decided she would explore providing electricity for her and her family. Gabriella B. did an outstanding job presenting her project and earned 1st place. Outstanding job Gabriella for your topic choice, thoroughness, and presentation.
In 9th grade, we had two other entries, we had a combined entry submitted by Mahi P. and Kritika T. and a separate entry by Zachary R. Our first place winners, Mahi and Kritika did an awesome presentation on how to provide food, as well as, plans for a unique water collecting device. Zachary R earned second place for his project on providing food while living off the grid.

THE STREAM COMMITTEE congratulates the class of 2021 on all of their accomplishments and future successes.

A special congratulAtions to our stream journey graduates

Pre-Health Sciences Journey: Maya Houri, Michelle Lin, and Noel Varughese

Computer Graphics Journey: Kayla Fernandez and Henry Ullaguari

Information Technology Journey: David Mauro Cortina, Christopher Hardy, Winson Kwok, and Preston Masean

Envision and Build Journey: Gil Gonzalez, Ryana James, Madison Kehoe, Berwin River, Aiden Rosenstein, and Adrian Zajkowski

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The Engineering Design Process is the heart of STREAM

Credits:

Created with an image by FrankWinkler - "lake cliff rocks"

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