STEM Extensions

A crucial part in making STEM experiences more meaningful and relevant involves affording students opportunities to extend and enhance previous classroom instruction, apply their skills to real-life scenarios, and interact with adults that are in STEM-related college courses or professions. Authenticity is an important factor in determining whether concepts or ideas ultimately "stick" with a student. It's no surprise, then, that the most authentic experiences often occur when students can visit and interact with the actual venues that house STEM facilities and personnel. Sometimes this involves interactive field trips, such as when our fourth graders attend overnight 4H camp or when our fifth graders visit Thompson Tractor and learn firsthand how STEM concepts are important when troubleshooting in the workforce. Other times, it involves bringing STEM professionals and experiences to Woodland Forrest. This year, we hosted engineers from the University of Alabama and Auburn University who taught our students and their families about the electromagnetic spectrum through experiments, and they used virtual reality to teach about aircraft carriers. A “nontraditional” STEM experience we brought to Woodland Forrest was the University of Alabama Million Dollar Band. The band members helped our first graders understand how instruments produce sound before they constructed their own instruments for their light and sound unit. Schoolyard Roots hosted a family cooking event on a Saturday morning where our students and families learned about the school garden and how to incorporate those ingredients into tasty dishes. We also started a continuous after-school STEM program for girls called, “Project Impact.” On top of our overall population being underrepresented in STEM, females are significantly underrepresented in STEM fields, and it is our responsibility to help change those statistics. The girls met weekly and worked on STEM projects that were of interest to them. They will attend space camp this summer as a culminating activity. This project also brought about an unintended “good” challenge. Due to the girls in Project Impact sharing their experiences, we now have boys pressing us to start an after-school boys’ STEM program. We are looking for a way to start an after-school STEM program for boys and possibly combine them with Project Impact. As our students are experiencing more STEM opportunities in and out of school, they are yearning for more. The through-line in all these experiences and activities is that students (and teachers) are afforded additional opportunities to make connections between classroom content and real-world tasks and challenges and that they get to apply those ideas, in a hands-on fashion, alongside actual STEM practitioners.

Project Impact

This year, we received a grant from STEM Next to start a STEM afterschool program for females in grades 4-12. Dr. Fowler from the University of Alabama and the Afterschool Community Network approached us with the opportunity and our STEM coordinator ran the program afterschool on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Girls were invited to the program based on interests and teacher recommendations. We recruited from two middle schools and the high school in our feeder pattern. This year, we only had students in grades 4-7 but each year as these girls progress through the program, we will add grades 8-12. Girls can stay in the program through graduation. The older students serve as mentors to the younger students. The girls worked on projects that were of interest to them. A few of the projects that were completed this year included fashion in STEM projects where girls upcycled old clothing, building and coding a pedometer, and building and coding a lantern with circuits and micro:bit. As a culminating activity, the girls will attend Space Camp and Space Academy this summer completely free of charge. When we enlist high school students, they will attend Advanced Space Academy and earn college credits. Project Impact won the Peggy Spain McDonald STEM Innovation Award from the Alabama Afterschool Community Network. This is a project we will continue with each year as a way to ensure our female students have equitable opportunities to STEM skills and futures.

Bicentennial

Celebrating the Alabama bicentennial brought about celebrating the Tuscaloosa bicentennial. The city of Tuscaloosa hosted an event where all schools in Tuscaloosa City represented 20 years in Tuscaloosa history. Woodland Forrest was in charge of representing the years 1940-1960. Our bicentennial team researched the time frame and pulled significant events. Each grade level then chose an event to contribute to representing. Many of our projects focused on at least one STEM discipline. One project focused on data collection about which football coach was better, Paul Bear Bryant (coach during the 58-60 seasons) or our current coach Nick Saban. Another grade level learned that BF Goodrich manufactured their first tire in 1946 so they repurposed an old BF Goodrich tire and planted flowers in it. A local shoe store opened in Tuscaloosa in 1953, so our 5th graders took the shoes they engineered for Duke basketball player Zion Williamson and added them to the display. Our students also researched Autherine Lucy, Dinah Washington, Northington Hospital, and Dreamland BBQ and created presentations on FlipGrid. Students worked on these projects during the school day and then we took a team of student docents to the event and they presented on our time period while portraying Paul Bear Bryant, Autherine Lucy, a surgeon, and Dinah Washington.

DiscoverFest

DiscoverFest started at Woodland Forrest around 2009. It is an event that celebrates our environmental focus on or around Earth Day. It is a whole day, in school event that runs similarly to field day, but with an academic and environmental spin. Each year, we invite parents and community partners to lead stations related to the environment. This year, our stations included a nature math trail which was differentiated for each grade level, cyanotypes, leaf printing, dance in nature, music in nature, petting zoo, Barnhill Preserve, Thompson Tractor, Earth Day read aloud and writing, and a catapult challenge. Some of the student favorite stations were learning a dance about plant growth, learning how to help animals at a preserve, and the cyanotypes. It was a day full of appreciating nature through science, reading, writing, math, art, music, and dance!

Garden Party

To engage our families in the school garden, Schoolyard Roots hosted a garden party for our families. Students, teachers, and their families came together on a Saturday morning to learn how to use ingredients from the garden to make delicious recipes. Participants made green smoothies, their own salad dressings, and orange braised kale. During the event, participants employed their math skills with measurements, knowledge of mixtures and solutions, and knowledge of plants in the garden. They were able to take recipe cards home with them so that they could recreate what was done at the garden party.

Tuscaloosa CAN!

Each year, Tuscaloosa City Schools partners with the West Alabama Food Bank to host an event called Tuscaloosa CAN! as part of an effort to expand awareness of hunger and food insecurity within our community. This problem impacts many of our students on a personal level every day. Tuscaloosa CAN! is an engineering and math project that combines this societal problem with rigorous and relevant academic content. Each year a team of 4th and 5th graders at WF are challenged with creating a 3D sculpture made from canned food items. Students integrate the skills of geometry and estimation, art and design, physics and engineering, as well as spatial reasoning as they complete their structure. The culmination of this event is a citywide contest and art exhibit, open to the general public. Woodland Forrest has built a number of award winning designs. In 2017, our students built a pie out of cans and won an award for “Best Meal.” In 2018, our students won an award for the best use of labels in their “Native Alabama” totem pole design. In 2019, our students brought home the award of most creative for the beehive they designed out of cans. In 2020, our students constructed a waterfall out of cans and won the student choice award. Due to the pandemic, there has not been an event in 2 years, but we look forward to next year’s competition and donating back to our community.

Summer STEM

At Woodland Forrest the learning does not stop when summer approaches. We offer summer school opportunities to our students during the month of June. We like to run summer school like a camp so that the learning feels like just having fun. One year of summer school that our students particularly enjoyed was our Olympic themed year. Each class represented a country in the Olympics. Students practiced using their math skills in various Olympic events such as high jump, 100 meter dash, and long jump. One of our 5th grade classes represented China at the Olympics. They researched to learn about Chinese culture and China’s Olympic history. As a culminating activity, students constructed the Great Wall of China and coded a Sphero robot through it. Students showcased this project at the closing ceremony (end of summer school). Constructing the Great Wall required students to collaborate, conduct research, use math skills such as angles, fractions, and area, and practice the engineering design process.

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