My students need hands-on/minds-on building kits that they creatively tinker with as they cooperatively learn about scientific machines.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Fix's classroom raised $929
This project is fully funded
My Students
The Title 1 community school I teach at is in one of the roughest areas in a city in Connecticut. All of my students qualify for free breakfast and lunch. The vast majority of them come from dysfunctional homes, and most deal with poverty or neglect. Some of my students have parents in jail, and a few have even seen parents or siblings killed.
Yet even with these hardships, all of my students have one thing going for them -- they all yearn to learn.
Even the children who act extremely tough on the outside swell with pride when they master something new in class. Our school is often their safe place, and I believe a big part of my job is to make it a place where they begin to learn how to overcome their hardships.
My Project
This summer I participated in a week-long workshop on innovative and engaging ways to incorporate STEAM into my two sixth grade math and science classes. The presenters stressed that even older students benefit from hands-on activities, they need to explore, and they need to struggle. One day we visited a teacher's incredible "tinkering lab", and also discussed A.C. Gilbert and the impact of his Erector Set on children a century ago.
My students will use the K'Nex and Meccano building sets for hands-on "controlled tinkering" as they creatively explore several scientific concepts like gears, levers, pulleys, forces, motion, and energy.
I plan to have my students work in small groups, give each group a different building set AND the Teacher's Guide, and facilitate as they cooperatively explore the capabilities of their building set. The Teacher's Guides propose several scientific and mathematical questions that will promote Critical Thinking, which I will progressively encourage them to document in their science journals as the year goes on. I will rotate the building sets among the student groups throughout the year, and during each rotation I will give one group the responsibility of using my iPad Mini to create a presentation and teach the other groups what they learned from their building set. The motors in my project will allow groups to enhance their creations, the baskets will be used to safely store in-progress projects, and the file boxes will hold journals, guides, graphic organizers, etc.
My students have few resources at home, and spend most of their free time on electronics. I am hoping that these tinkering exercises will not only develop their thirst for science inquiry, but also encourage them to see new uses for their limited resources.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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