I have been attending SLED (Science Learning through Engineering Design) this week at Purdue University. (Lisa is going, too; a double treat!) Already I have learned a lot about incorporating STEM activities into my lessons.
The weeklong seminar is free with breakfast and lunch provided along with a binder of material, five days of working with Engineering and Science professors, access to a web site with science and technology lesson plans aligned to Indiana's standards, PLUS I get paid $1000 and Hershey receives $950 of science/engineering teaching materials of our choice!
SLED is a grant project that is working to improve STEM learning in schools and studying the best ways to do that. For my part, I will teach two units that I received this week to my students and then write up a report on them for the research project.
Win-win, from my point of view.
MONDAY
Monday we began with an overview of what we could expect in the coming week, filled out some papers, and then got to work. Our first project? An experience with engineering design and real-life use.
Philippa Clymo (an Australian here on a Hardie Fellowship studying ways to teach STEM) and Cindy Yeater, 4th grade teacher at Hershey, explore bracing.
Our first task was to design and build a cell tower to specific dimensions. Materials to use included newspaper. The tower had to be able to hold a one pound weight and to withstand "wind" from a fan for thirty seconds.
Cindy, Kris Sharp (also a Hershey 4th grade teacher) and Phillippa work on our design.
Lisa and her team nervously look as the weight is added to theirs in the testing arena. (The weight represents the satellite dish on the tower.)
There were sixteen teams, each working on their own design. Sadly, ours collapsed after only three seconds of weight bearing!
TUESDAY
A quick debriefing and then we were back to work again. This time, our first task was to build a wolf trap to catch a wolf that had gotten into a construction zone. We had to incorporate two simple machines into our design.
Philippa and Kris, hard at work, and having fun, too!
Our finished trap with the cut-away side so you could see it work - and it did! We used several inclined planes, a lever, and a pulley in our design.
After the failure of our first project yesterday, we were quite thrilled to have succeeded!
The afternoon brought a new engineering challenge. We studied drag and the were tasked with building a boat to specific final measurements AND one that was s-l-o-w.
Yes, there is a boat under all those plastic plates.
Philippa anxiously watches as the professor preps the boat we will be racing.
Professor Pantich used her cell phone as a timer. Nine seconds! We won - we were the slowest boat! We "raced" boat after boat, and were named champion slow boat.
In fact, the boats raced so much that the water level was down two inches by the end of the racing.
They refilled the tubs, we did our final race, and were crowned champions.
WEDNESDAY
The routine was, by now, familiar. An overview of the day, and then a task to complete. Today's topic of study was sound.
Cindy and Kris.
We began by playing with tuning forks and the old fashioned cup and string method of communication (which worked!)
Then we moved on and were asked to design a musical instrument to certain parameters. (As the seminar has gone on, the tasks have become more difficult.)
We had to play our instrument for the group, and we even sang a song for the SLED attendees. The tune?
Three Blind Mice.)
Three deaf teachers.
Three deaf teachers.
We can't hear!
We can't hear!
We made an instrument as we were asked,
And played it and really had a blast,
But we can't hear it.
We can't hear it.
Got some nice applause for that one!
After lunch, we had our most difficult design challenge of the week thus far - designing and creating a door alarm.
It was HARD. Our materials (wire, an alarm, battery, and paper clip) did not want to work together. But finally we got everything to work, just as time ran out for building.
Philippa, Kris, and me with the door alarm.
Two more days of this conference - I am learning a lot and having a blast while I do it!
