STEM Friday: Stacking Cups

This Week’s Challenge

Create a tool, using only the materials provided, that will allow your team to stack six cups in the shape of a pyramid and then un-stack the pyramid back to a pile.

Materials (per team)

1. Six (6) plastics cup
2. Five (5) pieces of string
3. One (1) rubber band

Rules

1. Design your tool using only the materials provided.
2. Only the tool can touch the cups.
3. Hands can only touch the string.
4. Cups will be in a pile.  Stack the cups in a pyramid as fast as possible.

The main purpose of this activity was to learn how to cooperate within a group and use ALL members to complete the task.  It’s almost impossible to complete this task by touching only the string without everyone participating.  Many students struggled working together and sharing their ideas with members of their group.  This challenge was difficult, indeed!  That being said, I would like to give a special shoutout to Table 5 for being the first to get close to solving the challenge by tying a string to the rubber band.  In addition, I’d like to thank Table 2 for persevering and not giving up.

Great work, friends!

STEM Friday: Saving Sam!

This is our traditional beginning-of-year STEM Friday activity: Saving Sam! This activity not only promotes teamwork, but requires critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

This Week’s Challenge

Use the materials provided to put life jacket on Sam, the gummy worm, without him falling into the water.

Materials (per partner/group)

1. One gummy worm
2. One gummy lifesaver
3. One clear, plastic cup
4. Large paper clips (2-3)

Rules

1. Students will be in pairs.
2. Students may NOT touch “Sam,” the “life jacket,” or the “boat.”
3. Students may only touch the paper clips. They are allowed to bend them.
4. Students are NOT to poke “Sam” with the paper clips.
5. Set up: Place gummy lifesaver under cup (the cup is flipped over) and place gummy worm on top.
6. The goal: Students want to get the “life jacket” from under the “boat” and onto him using only the paperclips.

For our very first cooperative learning activity, teams worked really well together sharing ideas and not giving up.  Dylan and Maddie were the first to figure out how to get the life jacket on Sam, but struggled with actually getting him in.  After many unsuccessful trials, I decided to make it a little easier by letting the pairs work in table groups and giving the groups 2 more paperclips.  This was the result:

Great job, friends!

STEM Friday: Solar-Powered Ovens

After learning about heat energy, students practiced following step-by-step directions to build an solar-powered oven to investigate how we can use heat energy to cook food.

Students built ovens out of pizza boxes and set them outside to attract light and heat from the sun to “bake” s’mores and pizza.

Building:

Baking:

Eating:

STEM Friday (On a Tuesday): Real World Math Activity

Today, students participated in a real world activity to practice counting money and making change.  The activity involved applying for a job, earning a salary, cashing a check from the bank, and spending money using exact change or making change at the market.  It was a great capstone project to not only practice our money skills, but also experience how math is applied in the real world.

To begin the activity, students had to apply for jobs. Jobs included teacher assistants, store associates, store clerks, store managers, bank tellers, bank managers, and a police officer to monitor the halls. Teacher assistants assisted various teachers at RCSAI to complete a specific task. Once the task was complete, students received an envelope with their checks inside. They could then cash their checks at the bank. The bank teller and bank manager were to collect the checks and distribute the correct amount of money. Finally, students were able to use their money at the store. At the store, students had two options: use exact change to pay for an item or pay with more to get change. The store clerks and store manager were responsible for making sure all sale transactions were accurate and issuing correct change to customers.

Students had such a great time doing this activity.  It was much more meaningful than completing mundane workbook pages.

STEM Friday: Stacking Cups

This Week’s Challenge

Create a tool, using only the materials provided, that will allow your team to stack six cups in the shape of a pyramid.

Materials (per team)

1. Six (6) plastics cup
2. Five (5) pieces of string
3. One (1) rubber band

Rules

1. Design your tool using only the materials provided.
2. Only the tool can touch the cups.
3. Hands can only touch the string.
4. Cups will be in a pile.  Stack the cups in a pyramid as fast as possible.

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The main purpose of this activity was to learn how to cooperate within a group and use ALL members to complete the task.  Many students struggled working together and sharing their ideas with members of their group.  This challenge was difficult, indeed!  That being said, I would like to give a special shoutout to Aiden for being the first student to get close to solving the challenge by tying a string to the rubber band.  However, his team’s efforts were to no avail because his string was the only string attached and not everyone was involved.

Congratulations to Table 3 for being the first table to complete the challenge.  They worked diligently and kept making improvements on their failures until they finally got it!

Way to go friends!

STEM Friday: Paper Chain

This week’s challenge was not just to test the students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills, but to see how well they could work together in a group sharing different ideas.  Each student had a different idea of what a chain was or could be.  Their job was to express those ideas, listen to one another, and find the best possible way to complete the task.

This Week’s Challenge

Use the materials provided to created the longest chain you can.

Materials (per group)

1. (1) piece of paper
2. scissors
3. tape

Rules

1. Students will be in groups of three.
2. They may cut the paper however they like and use tape.

It was amazing watching the different ideas everyone had.  Purple group cut strips to make interlocking circles.  Pink group cut triangle pieces and taped them together (how creative!).  Green group started out by cutting actual circles from their paper and taping the circles together.  It was so cute watching their effort before they realized what everyone else was doing.  The rest of the groups cut and taped strips together.

Blue group had the longest chain, measuring a whopping 21 ft and 4 in.  Everyone was amazed and thought they were given two pieces of paper.  This led to a great discussion about perception and teamwork.

Great teamwork, friends!

STEM Friday: Stop Motion Animation

Incorporating the science and technology portion of STEM, students completed a capstone project for what we’ve been learning in science these past couple of weeks.

This Week’s Challenge

Using the materials provided, create a stop motion animation video that explains the cause of Earth’s seasons and demonstrates the change of seasons.

Below are the final products:

Arctic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Indian Ocean

Southern Ocean

It was challenge indeed, but they did not give up.  Given that this was their first encounter with stop motion animation, I would say they did a pretty good job!  Great job, friends!

STEM Friday: Real World Math Activity

Last Friday, students participated in a real world activity involving applying for a job, earning a salary, cashing a check from the bank, and spending money using exact change or making change at the market.  It was a great capstone project to not only practice our money skills, but also experience how math is applied in the real world.

To begin the activity, students had to apply for jobs. Jobs included teacher assistants, store associates, store clerks, store manager, bank tellers, bank manager, and a police officer to monitor the halls. Teacher assistants assisted various teachers at RCSAI to complete a specific task. Once the task was complete, students received an envelope with their checks inside. They could then cash their checks at the bank. The bank tellers and bank manager were to collect the checks and distribute the correct amount of money. Finally, students would be able to use their money at the store. At the store, students had two options: use exact change to pay for an item or pay with more to get change. The store clerks and store manager were responsible for making sure all sale transactions were accurate and issuing correct change to customers.

Signing his check

Cashing his check

Busy line at the market!

STEM Friday: Marshmallow Challenge

This Week’s Challenge

The marshmallow challenge, sometimes called the spaghetti tower challenge, is quite popular. The task is simple, yet teaches a profound lesson and requires lots of teamwork: “in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top.” (http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html)

Materials (per team)

1. 20 sticks of spaghetti
2. 1 yard of tape
3. 1 yard of string
4. 1 marshmallow
5. 1 pair of scissors

Rules

1. Build the tallest, freestanding (must stand on its own) structure
2. The marshmallow must be on top of the tower
3. You do not need to use all of the supplies
4. You are free to break up the spaghetti, string, and tape
5. You will not be given extra supplies
6. You will have exactly 18 minutes
7. After the 18 mins. are up, the tower must stand on its own to be measured
8. The team with the tallest tower wins

What a challenge!  Teams worked really hard to build a tower that would stand on its own.  Eventually, however, most teams gave up.  This is only the beginning of the year and our second STEM activity.  I hope through doing these, students learn not only how to think critically and creatively, but also how to work cooperatively and not have a “giving up” attitude.

In the end, Southern Ocean had the only standing tower at a height of 8 inches.  They did a great job working together and building a structure strong enough to hold the marshmallow.  I loved their use of the string to hold it all together!

Great job, friends!

STEM Week: DIY Kite

This week, students got to get creative by designing their very own kites!  They were allowed to use whatever tools they wanted to build their design.  After drawing the blueprints and writing the steps, students began the construction process.  Some used paper; some used plastic; and one student even brought in fabric from home!  We taped down some straws, drew the shape, and cut it out.  We made tails and added some string.

Then, we went out to test our kites!  The wind speed was about 8 mph that day.  Through trial and error, we got some to fly.  Some stayed in the air for a long time;  some flew for only seconds at a time; one did not fly at all (☹ this student used sticks as his framework, which was too heavy on this not-so-windy day).  After enjoying our short time outside (it was really hot!), we came back inside and reflected on our designs.  Students discussed how weight and wind speed affected their kites’ success.

Overall, it was a fun STEM project to end our year.  And since each student designed his own kite, they get to keep their kites to enjoy over summer break!