STEM

Fifth & Sixth Grades

Stem Club is an after-school program that is available to 26 fifth and sixth graders. Students who are chosen (randomly) participate in hands-on activities that promote 21st century skills, which include critical thinking, cooperation, problem solving skills, communication and creativity. Participants are immersed in real-world scenarios where they learn and explore topics that include rocket science, spread of diseases, soldering, chemistry, accuracy vs precision, and so much more. Many activities include design challenges, which require students to work together to solve a problem.

I have attended Space Camp for teachers (Huntsville, Al), Air Camp for teachers (Dayton, Oh), and Stem training from the Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD), as well as many other professional development trainings which have helped to prepare me.

Erica Hamm, STEM Teacher, Primary and Intermediate

Seventh & Eighth Grades

I will be teaching a STEM “pre-engineering” course as an elective available to students in grades 7 and 8. In both grade level classes the focus will be on teaching these 21st century skills: Collaboration, Creativity, Communication and Critical Thinking Skills. Students will learn The EDP (Engineering Design Process). They will ask questions, imagine solutions to problems, brainstorm ideas, use prototype modeling and the iterative process, create, design, plan, build, test and share their ideas and solutions. Students will be exposed to career connections with all design challenges they participate in. A few of the challenge areas this year will be building and testing material strength of various materials as we look at materials science engineering. Students will investigate solar energy and using sensors they will build a solar oven and collect data to analyze. We will look at prosthetic limb design and the advances being made in the technology that drives improvements for quality of life and we will build and test student designed and created prosthetic dog legs that will be strength tested. Students will research automaton and will design and create an automaton that connects to something in history and tells a story. Students will also work on a hydraulic arm design challenge to move toxic waste barrels to a safe location sparing human lives. We will use various forms of new technology including augmented and virtual reality, google expeditions, podcasting, 3D printers, Spheros, Ozobots, and Drone flight technology, Glowforge and more. 

Jill Weaver, STEM Teacher, Junior High