President John F. Kennedy said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” As a science and STEAM teacher, this quote motivates me to challenge my students on a daily basis. Watching them struggle through a challenge and come to a solution is the most rewarding part of this career for me.
The young engineers in my STEAM Lab elective are very inquisitive and are naturally drawn to STEAM challenges where we integrate science, technology, engineering, art, and math through student-driven inquiry.
Students in this class come from diverse backgrounds: English learners, special needs students (including moderate-severe special education students from a special day class), and GATE students. In the semester these 6th, 7th, and 8th graders spend with me, they work toward achieving these goals: working cooperatively with others; taking initiative and owning your learning; having good time management and staying organized; being responsible; engaging in critical thinking; and creativity and problem solving.
My Project
I teach a semester-long elective STEAM Lab class at my middle school. Students spend 3-4 weeks learning background information on a particular science concept and ultimately work together in teams of two, while practicing the engineering design process, to create a challenge project. One particular project called “Rolling Robots” involves building a robot which they must operate remotely to pick up an object and bring it to them while being timed. This simulates situations where robots are sent into remote or dangerous environments to retrieve objects. Another project called “Beyond Earth” involves students building a model of a permanent colony on Mars. Because there are so many projects being built over the course of three weeks, I am in great need of glue guns and protective mats for them to assemble their projects. Additionally, I need two kinds of shelving: one with bins to sort the various building materials they can access for their projects, and two more open shelving systems on which to store each period’s works-in-progress.
These Project-Based-Learning experiences will help my students emerge from school prepped with 21st century skills so that they can compete in the global job market, especially in STEAM careers.
These projects will increase student’s engagement in the challenging subject matters of physics, chemistry, and astronomy by giving them real-life situations where they simulate what actual engineers and business professionals do on a daily basis.
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