As mentioned in my Monday Message, we have several STEM activities planned for this week. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education. We focus on these areas together no only because the skills and knowledge in each discipline are essential for students success, but also because these fields are deeply intertwined in real world and in how students learn most effectively. STEM is an interdisciplinary and applied approach that is coupled with hands-on, problem-based learning. Today, we completed The Marshmallow Challenge. Students amazed me with their teamwork and creative thinking. Students were allowed 30 minutes to build a structure using only 20 spaghetti noodles, a yard of tape, a yard of string, and a marshmallow. The winning team got a pass of their choice! Mrs. Burnette's homeroom winner: Ms. Mitchell's homeroom winner: In my homeroom, we only had one standing structure at the end of the time limit. With about 3 minutes remaining, the winning group realized that everyone else did not have a standing structure and chose to play it safe and place their marshmallow near the bottom where it was more sturdy.
Mrs. Mitchell's homeroom had 4 standing structures at the end of time. We had to measure to find the winner. It was very close...the winner's was 20.5 inches and they were closely followed by a 20 inch and 19.5 inch structure. We learned many valuable lessons during this activity...
Hope you enjoy viewing the photos from our activity. The kids seemed to love it!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
My dream is to create a 21st Century classroom that encourages collaboration, integrates technology, and promotes thinking deeply.
Archives
August 2018
|