We need 2 Fire tablets and 2 CBR sonic scanners to evaluate our solar car designs. They will allow students to observe real time data and calculate how it affects speed and acceleration on tablets.
$444 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
We started a new STEM class which was designed to be student-led to help students develop critical skills including collaboration and leadership. Omar, Lucia, Victor and Yvonna as well as others in the class have taken leadership roles helping to improve it with creating this project and mentoring others.
The STEM Design & Modeling class gives students hands-on investigation into many topics. One of their favorites was to design and build solar cars. The part they liked most of the solar car unit was Race Day! Students work in groups to strengthen their critical-thinking and creative problem-solving skills as wells as reflect on the performance and what they could do to improve it. But they do not have any quantitative method to test their designs. They did not know how their car would compete until race day.
CBR2 sonic scanners would allow them to observe real time data and calculate how it affects speed and acceleration on the tablets to identify which configurations such as weight, gear ratios, sun angle, aerodynamics, traction, friction, front- or rear-wheeled drive and wheelbase allows the best overall design.
Students have also researched, planned, designed and will build a wind tunnel. This will teach students technology and engineering skills that they can be used on other applications.
A STEM Day at the Races will provide students the opportunity to work in collaborate learning teams where they can strengthen their critical-thinking and creative problem-solving skills. They also will reflect on their performance and what they could do to improve their designs. This teaches leadership and gives students a chance to participate in the design process and be active partners in their own learning which develops responsibility and self-confidence.
My students will gain the confidence to be able to explore and learn through trial and error. They will get to investigate motion through inquiry; a proven method of teaching science instruction. These materials will allow students to learn via hands-on investigation and inquiry. These processes are aligned to the NGSS and the CCSS for pedagogy.
It will also teach science, technology, engineering and math concepts that allow students compete in a global economy. Hopefully, this will also encourage students to go into much needed STEM fields.
In Their Own Words
We want to improve our Solar Car Races by measuring speed and acceleration. Right now, we can't measure these factors so we do not know which car is faster. We need to determine this information to improve our solar cars. The new CBR 2 sonic scanners and wind tunnel will help us analyze the improvements that we make in building our cars.
We have researched, designed and will build our own wind tunnel from donated materials. This will give us engineering and technical skills and pride in our own design.
We will assemble a team of smart, creative people to be leaders on the projects. We will assign jobs to our leadership team to organize and bring this project to life. Jobs will be project manager, researchers and writing team. The teacher will order the CBR scanners and Fire tablets and the leadership will assemble, test and improve the assignment to include the CBR sonic scanners and wind tunnel. We are adding an assignment that measures speed acceleration to our current assignment as well as adding new test runs.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Leggio and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
