It's almost the 4th of July! In another week, all of the red, white, and blue accessories in the stores will be replaced with backpacks, pencils, and school uniform displays. That means it must be time to get serious about planning for another awesome year in the Sinclair STEM lab.
So what can you expect in the 2016-2017 season in the STEM lab? For starters, students will continue to improve their computer programming skills with Code.org and Scratch. Programming, or coding, helps students develop critical problem solving skills that are vital across the curriculum. Code.org teaches basic programming concepts and Scratch allows students to create stories, games, songs, and much more using those concepts.
A sample Scratch animation. Click the green flag to start.
Students will also continue to work on their engineering skills using Lego WeDo and K'Nex building kits. We will also engage in some old fashioned cardboard, glue, masking tape, and chenille stick making. The emphasis in this year's building tasks will be on getting students to design and test multiple way of meeting the design criteria, and then selecting the best one.
Finally, students will learn to connect their programming skills to the physical world using tools like Makey Makey boards and the world's smallest programmable robot, Ozobot. A Makey Makey allows students to turn ordinary objects into keys on the computer. Anything that even sort of conducts electricity will work. The Ozobot can be programmed using color coded lines on paper or using a block-based Javascript language on the computer.
There will be so much more of course, but this preview will have to suffice for now. Check back often for updates about after school activities like our Schlumberger Coding Club and Lego robotics team. Also, this is where information about participating on Sinclair's UIL academics team will be posted.
Have a great 4th of July!
