STEM Lab 23_24 Round 3

We have had another awesome round in the STEM lab. From storytelling with robots to miniature museums, the students have created outstanding projects. 

Kindergarten & 1st Grade

Our youngest Superstars returned to computer programming this round. This time however, there were no screens involved in their coding. Rather, the students wrote programs for a pair of robots; the perennial favorite, Robo-Mouse, and exciting newcomer, Bee-Bot. Students built mazes of increasing complexity for Robo-Mouse to navigate. With the Bee-Bots, students creates sets and costumes and programmed the robot to act out the main events of a story. 

There is a saying of uncertain origin among computer programmers that goes something like this: the good news about computers is that they do exactly what you tell them to do, the bad news about computers is that they do exactly what you tell them to do. Of all the coding activities I do with students, none evokes the spirit of this aphorism more than this robotics unit. The number of times I have heard some variation of the phrase, "I programmed it right, but it's not working" from the students during robot week is beyond reckoning. However, I do not think any unit in the whole of the STEM Lab curriculum I have created more completely drives home for students the importance of clear, orderly commands when coding than this one. 

2nd Grade

One of the best things about being the STEM lab teacher is the mandate to create learning opportunities that allow students to discover the connections between the different content areas. The Math Stories unit is a favorite of mine for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that thing I miss about being in a regular classroom is getting to teach books on a regular basis. Another one of the reasons is chance to let students play with and explore math concepts which is sadly not a regular part of the standard issue math curriculum. The books I chose for this year's 2nd grade math stories unit were: A Remainder of One, One Hundred Hungry Ants, Grandfather Tang's Story, and Perfect Square. The first 2 titles explore ideas related to multiplication and division while the other two are an opportunity to play with geometry. 

3rd Grade

Third grade also returned to computer programming this round. This was the first half of a two part project that will combine both digital and physical elements. Inspired by my National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship this past summer, students researched an arctic animal, taking notes on its habitat, behaviors, and the challenges it faces. They created a Scratch project to share what they learned from their research using pictures from Britannica and National Geographic to illustrate the facts they included. 

This is the first project that I have the students do in which they use Scratch to create a product with a specific purpose. It is when I teach them to add pictures to their Scratch programs and when they learn about key press events. In the next round they will create a poster about their selected topic and wire it to a Makey Makey that will allow users to control the Scratch project by touching different parts of the poster. When everything is complete they will share their projects with a visiting class and administrators. 

The Scratch projects are in studio that can be viewed here. Please note that some of these are works in progress.

4th Grade

The fourth grade classes wrapped up their biography projects this round and presented their work to visiting 2nd grade classes. Previously the students researched the life and contributions of a chosen historical figure. They had a variety of choices ranging form artists and composers to inventors and scientists. In this round the students put the finishing touches on the Scratch projects they created last time in the lab and built a model of their subject using a plastic bottle, cardboard, and construction paper. At the end of the week they connected their models to their Scratch projects with our old friend Makey Makey and presented their finished products. Not only was I proud of the amazing job the 4th graders did explaining their work to our visitors, but I was so impressed with how the 2nd graders grilled their hosts with questions about the historical figure, the working of the Scratch project, and how the model was constructed. 

5th Grade

The 5th grade also completed the second half of a larger project this round and presented their learning. This project too was inspired by my Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship expedition. Students researched the arctic ecosystem and the issues facing the natural and human communities of the region in the previous round and programmed a digital museum room using Scratch to share what they had learned. In this round they constructed a miniaturized physical version of their digital museum exhibit. The door to this model was wired to a Makey Makey so that opening it triggered the Scratch project to begin narrating the contents of the museum. At the end of the week the students shared their work with visiting first graders and administrators. 

STEM Lab Round 4

Round 4 in the STEM lab has been truly wonderful! The students have done some amazing work and leanred so much. From programming robots to interactive posters to hacked works of art, I could hardly be more proud. Read on for a look at what we have been up to in the lab.

Kindergarten & 1st grade

Robo-Mouse returns! This is always a fun unit to teach in large part because of the excitement of the students. At this point in the year they have had a great deal of experience watching their programs run on a screen. The year started with Code.org coursework and was followed later with Scratch Jr. However, there is a special thrill to seeing one's code run in the physical world as the Robo-mouse moves through the mazes students constructed. 

In Kindergarten we start with a general introduction to handling the robot to keep it safe, and then we do a couple short programming exercises together so we can discuss the differences between this and our screen-based programming tools. Then students work in groups to create a maze for their robot and take turns coding it to the cheese. After this initial exploration time, students are given task cards with mazes to build and then program the mouse to navigate. The task cards describe long mazes requiring more complex programs to complete.

Most of the 1st graders remember using Robo-mouse last year, so we begin with a brief review and some exploration time in order for them to get reacquainted with the device. The rest of the week they work on a series of increasingly challenging task cards. They build the maze and, before getting their hands on a robot, they use the algorithm cards to plan their programs. This gives them the chance to develop their algorithmic thinking and to practice debugging as they identify the place in the program where things went wrong. Each day after they complete the task cards, students are allowed to design their own mazes and they delight in challenging themselves with the most difficult ones they can imagine. 

2nd grade

I have wanted to do a math stories unti with second grade for a while, but was not able to get a hold of the books I wanted to use. Thanks to the support of our awesome PTO, I was finally able to gather the desired books to bring math stories to second grade. Most of the books have a focus on building number sense and on operations like addition and multiplication, but we also touch on geometry. After reading and discussing each day's story, students work together on an activity related to the math found in the book. The activities are generally in the form of a number puzzle or problem solving activity. Students have to share their reasoning both with me and their classmates. I was so impressed by the rich discussions I heard students having with each other as I walked around the room. Our geomtry book, Perfect Square, lent itself to a more artistic project. Students decorated and dismantled a plain white square of paper to create a picture inspired by the story. The primary goal of the unit's activities is showing students that there are a variety of strategies, all equally valid that can result in solutions. 

3rd grade

In round 3 our third graders selected a science topic to research and then created Scratch project to share what they had learned. Round 4 started with an introduction to the Makey Makey I/O board. The name is an amalgam of "make" and "key" and stands for "make a key". It allows us to  use any conductive material to build switches and keys that can communicate with and control our programs. Students practiced setting up the Makey Makey and explored its capabilities with a set of plug and play apps including a piano, audio sampler, and etch-a-sketch drawing program.

Next, students created a poster that complemented their Scratch project. They added metal fasteners and copper foil tape to create touch points for the user to control the program. These were connected to the computer via Makey Makey, here acting as a USB keyboard. The Scratch programs they created use the space and arrow keys as events to run different parts of the code. The Makey Makey is precoded to those keys. Touching the "earth" point and one of the others at the same time closes a circuit that the board reads as a press of that key. The corresponding part ot the Scratch program runs as each point is touched. We wrapped up each week by sharing our work with a visiting first or second grade class. Everyone did a great job presenting! All of the Scratch projects are in this studio.

4th grade

This round was the beginning of a two part project centered on the state parks of Texas. The theme of the fourth grade curriculum is the history and geography of Texas, so this project is a natural tie in. Students explored different sites on the Texas Parks and Wildlife site. They were allowed to select any park that caught their interest to be the subject of their research. I gave them a series of guiding questions to help their notetaking that included identifyinig the region of Texas the their chosen park is in, the history of the park, and the plants and animals that can be found there. After gathering information, the students planned and began programming a digital tour guide for the park using Scratch. The most of the projects are in this studio, but many are works in progress because of the week's other activity. 

The fourth graders also participated in a Skype-a-Scientist meeting during this unit. Skype-a-Scientist has been part of many STEM lab units over the years. They partner classroom teachers with scientists working in a variety of fields. Students have tthe chance to have a conversation about a scientific topic with an expert and to learn about what it is like to work as a scientist. I requested ecologists for this particular round of meetings because one of the things I want to students to investigate about their park is the ecosystem it is a part of. Skype-a-Scientist took 2 days of the unit, one to learn background on ecology and our scientist's particular focus, and one day for the meeting. Each meeting is a bit different, but they are always interesting.

5th grade

This round's fifth grade project is one I have done in a few different iterations in recent years, and I look forward to it. I alternately refer to it as "Interactive Art" or "Hacked Art". Students select a painting from a famous artist from a collection I have put in a Google folder. Students are allowed to suggest a painting that is not one of the ones provided, but I do insist on approving it. The painting gets loaded into Scratch as a background first, and then as a sprite. Using the image tools, students erase all of the painting added as a sprite except for an element that they want to be interactive. They place this element against the background where it blends in. This sprite is coded to react to being clicked. This process is repeated several time until most of the painting has been made interactive. I always love seeing the creative outputs the students imagine into the paintings. Below are two standout projects (it was really hard to choose just 2). Click the green flag and then click the elements of the painting. Sound on to get the full effect. The complete hacked art studio is here. (Until 2/17/2023 the projects at the top of the studio are works in progress.)

Two for One Blog Post - Interactive Posters and Math Stories

The run up to the winter break is is always a busy time. Mine was even busier than usual and the first casualty was my blog posting schedule. So this one will wrap up the work done by the kindergarten, first, and third graders during cycle 2. Then I'll be all ready to go when cycle 3 starts in another week.

Third graders got their first taste of true digital making during this rotation with the interactive posters project. Each class had a different set of research topics to choose from. I try to do this with all of my groups and grade levels. It gives me the chance to see how well various topics work for a particular project. Also, speaking for myself, I like to have some variety in the projects over the course of the unit since I am implementing the same lesson plan 4 times in a row as the classes rotate through the lab. The choices ranged from recycling and energy conservation to birds and fish to objects in our solar system.

Students had the option to work independently or with a partner. They researched their chosen topic and recorded notes in their journals. They then planned a Scratch project to teach about their topic. The plans needed to include backgrounds and sprites they would use, what facts from their research went with each background, and how the sprites would move and talk. I introduced the students to computer programming vocabulary like "event" and "comment". Events are a key part of how their programs for this project operate and commenting one's code is a good habit to get into and one I have been lax in training my students in acquiring. The students also learned how to add pictures from other sources to their Scratch projects. An important part of this is finding pictures that are open source and giving proper attribution in the project notes.

Teams start on the Scratch project together so that both partners are familiar with the basics of its function. After a day or two one partner steps aside and begins work on a poster that complements the Scratch project. When the poster and program are complete, brass fasteners and copper foil tape are added to the poster to create touch points that can be used as key press events to run the various parts of the Scratch program. Turning these conductive materials into "buttons" is achieved by using the Makey Makey input/output board. It is essentially a keyboard connected to the computer via USB without any keys. Wires with alligator clips connect the poster to the Makey Makey which, once plugged into the computer, allows the brass fasteners on the poster to function as key presses when touched.

One of the things I have come to love most about teaching in the STEM lab over the last 5 years is the pure excitement and wonder that students express the first time they try out something made interactive with the Makey Makey.

I wrote a guide to this interactive poster activity that can be found here on Instructables.

Kindergarten and first grade had a unit that centered on math and literacy. Each day we read a story in which some kind of mathematics is involved, different books for each grade level, and then worked on an activity related to the math concept from the book. The books vary a little from one class to the next. Partly that is because of the various interruptions like fire drills and holidays that occur, and partly it is because I do not own a copy of all of the books I would like and have to request them from the public library. Regardless of the books read, the math concepts covered are generally the same. We touch on things like doubling and skip counting. We look at strategies for decomposing and grouping numbers. There is always some measurement and some geometry as well.

I have done some form of this unit for the last few years in the lab and it is always one of my favorites. This unit was born out of my realization that after a couple of year out of the regular classroom I missed teaching literacy, and more specifically books, to my students. My two week units do not allow me to teach novels like I used to, but this unit gives me the chance to read with students again. More importantly, I get to make clear to them the connections between mathematics and literacy that I fear they miss during their classroom reading block.

Once Upon a Time... Math

One of the many things I love about teaching in the STEM Lab is helping students make connections across the curriculum. STEM, STEAM, STREAM, whichever acronym you prefer, are all, at their core, about breaking down the walls of the "knowledge zoo" that school sometimes feels like. That is the mindset, unfortunately increasingly prevalent the higher up one goes in the elementary grade levels, that these 90 minutes are for math, not literature, not writing, not science. The next 90 minutes are for another subject in isolation, and so is the next 90, and so on. It is not a realistic model of how anyone uses their learning for an actual purpose. Just about everything everyone does, cooking, assembling furniture, planning a day trip, etc. draws on knowledge from across disciplines that are made for the most part to inhabit lonely cages in a school setting. The STEM Lab is the Serengeti where learning from all subjects roams free.

This rotation in the lab, kindergarten and first grade are being introduced to various math concepts through literature. I have done similar units in years past, but each time the books change, sometimes even from one class to the next. I do my best to avoid the types of contrived stories written by textbook companies. Children can tell the stories are phony and they generally are painfully dull.

I will not launch into a detailed description of each book involved in this unit. I will however share a few of my favorites.

Inch by Inch by Leo Leoni. This one is about a clever inchworm who uses his ability to measure and his wits to avoid being eaten by birds. After reading, the students practice measuring classroom objects with inch tiles and record their data on a table. What I especially love about reading this is that the book also illustrates a number of bird adaptations. We discuss why a flamingo has a long neck and a bill like a shovel and why a hummingbird has such a long and pointy bill.

The King's Commissioners by Aileen Friedman and Susan Guevara. In this book, a king decides that he ought to know how many royal commissioners he has appointed. With some help from the Royal Advisors and the Princess, each employing a different method of skip counting, the total number of commissioners is found. The students are already familiar with the concept of skip counting and know that it is a way of arriving at a total more quickly. What I like about this story is that it illustrates how one handles skip counting when there are "left over" items that are not enough to make another group. When we finish reading, students practice making different sized groups with inch tiles, counting them by the group size, and then adding in the left overs to get the total number.

The Greedy Triangle by Marilyn Burns. This is the story of a triangle who gets tired of doing the "same old things" that a triangle does, namely being roofs for houses, sails for sailboats, supports for bridges, and so on. The triangle decides to visit the Shapeshifter and asks for another side and another angle to make his life "more interesting". The request is granted and, now a quadrilateral, the shape enjoys being books, movie screens, floor tiles, and much more. Eventually though, the shape becomes bored being a quadrilateral, and returns to the Shapeshifter for another side and angle. The pattern continues, the shape is happy for a while as a pentagon, then a hexagon, and on and on, but always goes back to the Shapeshifter for another side and angle, and another, and another. Fortunately, the shape realizes that more sides and angles is not the answer to its dissatisfaction. This book is a great way to introduce students to the concept of shapes being named by the number of sides and angles they have, not by what they look like. The sooner students learn that there is no such shape as a diamond or a house, the better. Following the story, students use pattern blocks to create colorful pictures like those from the book.

I'll stop there, but I really could go on and on. I love this unit so much because of all the math, science, literature, and art that fit so naturally within it.