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Fall 2012
Fellows: Riley Meehan and Jessica Scolnic
Semester Outline:
Week 1: Intro Lesson: Tinfoil boats with penny loading
Introduce students to designing and making things in a scientific context. Activity went well, students were all engaged, had a productive science discussion about what worked well and what did not.
Week 2: Intro to Earthquakes: Open-ended science discussion
STOMPers led more of a traditional lesson about P-waves/S-waves, plate tectonics etc. Did wave demonstrations with slinky and rope. Demos would have been better done on the floor as opposed to in mid air. Purpose of this lesson was to engage students in thinking like scientists, not necessarily getting them to say all correct answers but just think critically about science concepts. All students participated in full-class discussion and small group discussions, as well as "journal time."
Week 3-5: Develop an Engineering Scientific Model
Week 3: Planning
Week 4: Building
Week 5: Finishing touches and presentations/class discussion
Students reminded each other of a list of science related to earthquakes, broke up into groups to develop models of different important science ideas (eg: plates moving/fault lines, ground shaking, and earthquakes near water.) Students requested a list of materials to be brought in next time, also had small group "share-out" time to get more ideas and suggestions about their designs.
STOMPers could have been clearer about the intentions and purposes of this activity-- many students fell back on the idea of building sturdy vs not sturdy buildings and demonstrating why they are that way, while our intention was to have them develop models of science concepts to be used in a variety of engineering tests later on.
Spring 2012
Fellows: Alyssa Kody and Daniel Pavitt
Semester Outline
Activities
Fall 2011
Fellows: Alyssa Kody and Danielle Pike
Semester Outline
Activities
- Egg Helmet
- Pulleys
- Paper Towers
- Introduction to Programming with Pulleys
- Designing Aztec Machinery
- Programming with Fans
- Building/Programming Snow Removal Device