Kids Doing Science

The school year is now complete, and the kids are going their separate ways for the summer. So now it's time for teachers to relax, recharge and renew before August. For me, that includes taking part in summer professional development opportunities. I will be involved in two this summer. One is "Science in the Rockies: Steve Spangler's STEM Experience", July 9-11 in Denver, Colorado. Science In The Rockies "A amazingly fun, three-day professional development experience that is guaranteed to make STEM more exciting and meaningful for your students.  Science in the Rockies  is perfect for educators, administrators and curriculum specialists (Pre-K to 8) who want to explore best practices, instructional strategies and high-level engagement pedagogy for inspiring students through STEM. Oh, and you’ll participate in more than 75 of Steve’s favorite demonstrations and experiments." The other starts this summer but will run the whole year. It's called

The last challenge also came from a teacher at 'Iolani School...Kathy Warner, Lower School Science Teacher has been doing this project as part of her space unit in 3rd grade. Over the 4 years I worked at 'Iolani, she graciously asked me to assister her in helping to add more Maker Ed aspects to this project. The last year I worked with her, we had the students using rapid prototyping (3D printers, & laser cutters), Scratch programing, MakeyMakeys, simple circuits and green screen video. When the curriculum was bring developed here, I knew I had to use this project. The first part of this unit was to have each student research something in space (planet, asteroid, galaxy, black hole, etc.) and create a poster using Google Slides. These posters would be presented to the class to show what each person had learned (I'll write up the poster project at a later time). It was also a spring board for Project SEV (Space Exploration Vehicle) #3 Design challenge:  Imagine

Challenge number 2 was inspired by Jaymes Dec's (@jaymesdec). Our idea is just starting out but if you want to see a full fledged, amazing project, check out the Nerdy Derby (@NerdyDerby). #2 Design challenge: Imagine, plan and make a vehicle that will roll down a ramp and go the farthest distance using only gravity. The vehicle had to be no more then 20cm long, 10 cm wide and have a mass equal or less than 40g. At the final competition, they would record the mass of the vehicle, the distance it traveled and how long it took. They would then analyze the data and compare with other groups to see if any conclusions could be formed. Materials:  1 piece oaktag, 1 dowel, 4 wheels, masking tape, pennies Process:  Similar to the first challenge, students went through the design process and come up with a few ideas. They then shared those with their partner and collectively, they came up with one plan.  There was a practice ramp set u