Professional staff members implement high quality STEM courses and curriculum aligned to recognized standards and organized into interdisciplinary frameworks.  

Building a Foundation Challenge 

1st Grade

First grade students start the school year with this challenging activity from Code.org. Students watch several examples of babies and animals working to achieve a difficult task by trying again and again even when they fail. Students are put into pairs or small groups and given the challenge to use to build a tower using 30 gumdrops and 30 toothpicks. Students use the engineering design process to ask questions, imagine, plan and build. Their structure must hold a book for 10 seconds. Students have fun learning to not give up, but keep trying.

Creating Earthquake Proof Structures

4th Grade Science

For this lesson, Students were provided a scenario and materials to construct a tower that could be tested to see if it would remain standing or collapse. Students used steps of the Engineering Design Process to address a real-world problem and then had to develop a plan to create and build the structure, test the structure, make changes, and then modify and adjust and perhaps test it again. Students collaborated in teams and used various ideas as they built their structures.

Gravity Orbit PhET Labs 

6th Grade Science

STEM is always more powerful when students can connect with it in authentic, natural ways within the setting of the regular classroom experience.  An example of this would the the Orbit and Gravity PhET that the students in 6th grade complete in order to learn about the affect objects in space with larger mass have on objects in space with less mass.  Students are guided through a simulation lab, in which they gather data on what happens to the Earth, as it orbits the Sun, when the mass of the Sun is increased and decreased.  They also gather data on what happens when the mass of the Earth is increased and decreased.  The set the parameters.  The observe what happens in the simulation.  Next they record their observations in data tables.  Finally, they draw conclusions about how the changes in mass affect the gravity and velocity of the planets and the orbital path caused by the eventual increase or decrease in gravity.   Students are then directed to write up their findings in the form of a CER (claim, evidence, and reasoning).  This gives them a much more authentic experience rather than simply reading in a text book about how gravity is affected by mass.  

Picture Perfect Science Lessons

Picture Perfect has some amazing science lessons.  The combined literature with interactive hands-on activities that are very engaging for the students.  We do several activities involving force and motion, light and sound and animal habitats. During the light and sound unit, we discussed shadows, translucent things and transparent things.  We explored different things that made sounds and learned how sound travels.  The force and motion unit had us exploring with toy cars and ramps.  We discussed how friction and height changed how far/fast our cars traveled down a ramp.

Researching, designing, and constructing seismographs in 8th grade

The kids were also responsible for collaborating with their table group to create a video explaining their seismograph. Take a look at their final product! These kids had some very cool "out-of-the-box-designs"! (See what I did there?!)

Computer Science Resources