STEM Learners

Table of Contents:

Indicator 1 Narrative

Bankhead Middle School has a diverse student body of over 300 students from all socioeconomic levels. We are a Title I school with approximately 57% of our students receiving free or reduced meals. Our student population is made up of approximately 91% White, 7% Black, .64% Hispanic, and under 2% other races. Adding to our diversity is the range of academic abilities we serve. Our student population includes 6% Gifted, 13% special needs students, with the remaining comprised from all abilities in between.

Because STEM is implemented inside of all of our classrooms, our biggest strength is all students are exposed to a STEM curriculum. Furthermore, we use a variety of methods to ensure that all students have STEM opportunities and intentionally target non-traditional student participation in STEM through focused initiatives. To meet the needs of diverse students, we offer advanced courses in reading and math, and our general education reading and math classes have the first 30 minutes of each class dedicated to tier II and III instruction, as well as servicing our special education population.

Several Bankhead Middle School initiatives focus on helping under-represented students of all levels sharpen their skills to support success in STEM areas. Our BEST Robotics team strives to recruit students from all demographics, our monthly STEM day exposes the entire student body to STEM classes such as coding, carpentry, videography, and drafting, our 5th grade math teacher uses VEX Robotics with all 5th grade students, our math and technology teams are also open to the entire student body. Many of our various “team” members have accommodations ranging from 504 plans to IEPs. Also, we are pleased to say that both our BEST Robotics team and our newly created Math team both have equal representation in regards to males and females.

Tech Trek

Two of our female students were selected to attend UAH's Tech Trek. Tech Trek is a week-long residential camp and an American Association of University Women (AAUW) program. The camp features intensive hands-on experiments and activities designed to promote campers’ interest in the STEM fields. Tech Trek is an intentional response to research findings that girls remove themselves from STEM talent pools while in middle school.

Carpentry and Woodworking

Students learn to use different carpentry tools to build a variety of structures in this club. With a large portion of our population being at-risk, low income, or disadvantaged youth, this club teaches valuable vocational, entrepreneurial, and life skills. An aim for this club is to help prepare students to transition successfully into either the workplace or college.

Producing a Commercial

According to Nicklas et. al, some forms of advertising could have a more harmful effect on children of low income families, as research shows these children tend to watch more hours of television. With a majority of our population being considered low-income, students in Mrs. Chattham's class work hard each year to study the 3 types of appeals (Ethos, Logos and Pathos) and then produce their own commercial utilizing one of these appeals. Each appeal focuses on ways advertising gets customers to buy a product. After learning about the different types of appeals, the students are grouped and given a topic (e.i. mouthwash, Amazon Alexa, cigarettes, Doritos, etc). They have to use one of the appeals to create a commercial skit to advertise their product. The rest of the class has a rubric to decide which appeals are being used and identify the product being advertised.

Indicator 2 Narrative

Inside our classrooms, the focus on real world, complex projects is evident. We offer experiences that require students to identify a problem, investigate the issue(s), analyze the data, and create possible solutions. While collaboration is a key component of our classroom instructional practices, we also offer opportunities for students to work independently . Our students are familiar with and use the engineering process to find ways to solve local, relevant problems.

Our students have opportunities to work on cross-curricular projects, to work with other grade levels, and to work with outside community members. As a team, we build off of current knowledge to design real world learning opportunities for our students to encourage continuous growth in STEM areas.

We are in constant efforts to include more local businesses and industry in our collaborative processes, and we have seen a steady growth in this area over the past two years.

Vex IQ Robots

VEX IQ is a national robotics competition centered around building, programming, and driving a robot. Every fifth grader spends eight weeks of the year working to build an operational remotely controlled vehicle. Once the students have build their "standard drive base", the game objective is introduced to them. This often includes pushing, rolling, flipping, or stacking game pieces to gain points in a one minute time frame, and in which some tasks are worth more points than others. Students find that their standard drive base can only accomplish some of the tasks presented before them, and they must modify their base in order to accumulate as many points as possible. In this inquiry-based learning environment, students make great use of the scientific method by experimenting with their designs and making adjustments as needed.

Solar Smores

A PBL project our 6th graders did was create a solar oven out of household supplies. The students were given a lesson and suggested materials to use to build their oven. They had to gather materials from home and communicate with each other to get needed supplies. After the students gathered the needed material they attempted to create a solar oven to cook smores. The first attempt some groups cut the box wrong, leaving a big open gap that allowed air to flow, so they had to start over. Once they created a satisfactory oven, they took it outside and placed it in a sunny location to soften up the marshmallows and melt the chocolate!

Marble Maze

Students worked in teams to created Marble Mazes in Mrs. Pate's class to encourage them to think like engineers. They were tasked with using straws and their choice of adhesive to create a maze on a large piece of poster board. They were also encouraged to add additional features to act similar to a Rube Goldberg machine. After completing this lesson, students were able to make a prediction or hypothesis, make changes to an experiment to achieve desired results, compare and contrast results, and understand that there is a relationship between angle of descent and velocity.

Indicator 3 Narrative

At BMS, we strive to provide safe places for students to grow, and we realize that growth will require trial and error. Teachers work diligently to foster an atmosphere of supporting students, not rescuing them. We stress to students that when success occurs on the first attempt at something new, the task was not challenging enough. Through numerous student-led learning opportunities, teachers take the role of facilitators of learning.

Our classrooms are often places of choice for students. Many teachers offer student choice summative projects where students are allowed to choose how to "show what they know" to teachers. Proficiency scales are another great way BMS helps students self-direct their learning. These scales allow students to constantly evaluate their learning process. and they open pathways for conversations between teachers and students.

BMS Newsletter and Newscast

Our BMS 7th and 8th grade students are in a rotation to run a school newspaper led by Coach Johnson. This group conducts interviews, produces and designs the newsletter, and helps to provide material to the newscast team for weekly filming. The students write all newsletters themselves and distribute the newsletters twice a month.

Bankhead has a weekly newscast recorded and digitally distributed on campus. The entire process is student-directed: Students have been learning to operate the video camera, manage audio and lighting, and edit videos using the WeVideo program. Students also help craft a script and anchor the news segments that are filmed each week in the library.

Several community members have been very influential in creating and sustaining our BMS Newscast. Flora Freeman was a consultant in helping build the program from the ground up. She has background in videography, previously working for a local news station, and since retiring is now running a Youtube channel.

Another community member who helped from the beginning of the program is Mr. Grace from Grace's Music, who helped with the audio side of the production. He gave recommendations for microphones, wiring, placement, and some tips that proved very useful for the editing process.

Ashley Nuckols helps in maintaining high quality performance from our news anchors, and also helps with the creation of a commercial on our monthly club day. Ashley has been in over a dozen films and television shows including “The Walking Dead”, “NCIS: New Orleans”, “Nashville”, “Venom”; and filmed in Birmingham: “Live!”, “Embattled”, Netflix’s “The Devil All The Time”, and “Inheritance”. She believes that our students need to know that acting isn't the only career path to the entertainment industry, as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, camera operators, and all sorts of other people work on movie and TV sets.

Makerspace

Our Library hosts our school's Makerspace, which has Lego kits, Strawbee kits, and VEX kits to name a few. This space is wildly fun and is constantly being updated with new materials and ideas for tasks. Some of the things students have built recently include oragami bookmarks, "franken-bots", lego spiders, VEX-based claws, rube goldberg machines, and many more! In the particular Makerspace pictured below, students were given a task to build a tower that could hold a basketball only use tape and paper towel rolls.

Proficiency Scales

BMS uses proficiency scales so students can self-direct their learning and self-evaluate their growth. These scales give our students the opportunity to become leaders of their own learning and help make them more productive, autonomous, motivated, and engaged.

Indicator 4 Narrative

Our students have constant access to technology. We are a 1:1 school, allowing continuous access to the web and various technology resources. Research is constant and on-going inside our classrooms. Google Docs and Google Classroom are utilized on a daily basis as the most basic example of our school's fostering of collaboration among students. Whether it be collaborative editing of research papers, the 3D printer, or creating book trailers, technology is in constant use in our school.

Google Classroom is utilized by all classroom teachers. Teachers are constantly uploading videos, sample lessons, daily lessons, and practice materials for parents and students to use as resources for success. In addition, ELMOs and projectors are in use in every classroom, as well as numerous other technology resources available throughout the school.

Stop Motion Videos

Students created a stop motion video using iPads, a green screen, and craft materials during their Excel Class in the library. They loved the process and the opportunity to express their creativity. After some light instruction on what stop motion is and the technical features of producing a stop motion video, students were allowed to use their creative and critical thinking skills to collaboratively plan and produce a video.

BEST Robotics

BEST Robotics provides opportunities in graphic design, public speaking, marketing, video editing , web design, CAD design, programming, engineering design , and remote control operation of a robot. Each year there is a game based on real world problems. Students have to research the game theme, write a research paper, and create a marketing plan based on the needs of that year's game. Some of the game themes have included: space elevator, building a computer with motherboard components, alternative forms of energy, mining, farming, firefighting, cleaning ocean pollution, and restoring the power grid. Pictured below is the Cordova CHAOS robotics team at Bevill BEST in Fayette.

3D Printer

In the picture below, our 3D printer is in the middle of printing student designs from TinkerCAD. We also used the 3D printer to print a geodome to cover a feeding tube port for one of our cheerleaders. This allows her to be a flyer without danger of damaging the port or injuring the area around the port.

Indicator 5 Narrative

At BMS, students are given numerous opportunities to show evidence of STEM learning. Performance-based assessments allow students to demonstrate and express conclusions through elaborated explanations of their learning. Students are given opportunists to both inside and outside of school to discuss learning processes, share data, defend and express thoughts, and share final products and conclusion.

STEM Day, BEST Robotics, The Math Club, The Living Wax Museum, are a few examples of opportunities students are given to share STEM learning with all stakeholders. While in the classroom, demonstration of STEM learning happens on a daily basis. Teachers provide PBL opportunities, and students use rubrics and proficiency scales to interpret expectations and demonstrate meeting those expectations.

Students utilize opportunities to use a variety of technology to share research, questions, findings, and results. From the time students enter 5th grade, they are taught how to use a various mediums to express themselves and their learning. From news broadcasts to the simple daily use of the scientific method, our school is full of challenged students demonstrating exemplary STEM learning.

Book Trailer

Students are tasked with scripting, filming, and producing a book trailer in ELA. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll of Mr. Hyde" was written in Scottland during the 1800's. Students created a script that would make the novel relevant to middle school students today while still maintaining the same tone of suspense that author Robert Louis Stevenson infused. They then created storyboards before being allowed to research and choose both the best camera and microphone devices available and the best software to edit, cut, voiceover for the final production of the trailer.

Testing the Scientific Method

Our science classes utilize AMSTI materials and investigations regularly. In the investigation pictured below, students made a model helicopter and used it to help practice applying the steps of the scientific method. They were given a problem question and it was their job to write a suitable hypothesis. This assignment is intended to be a guide to the methods that scientists use to solve problems and give students information about how to “wing their way’ through their own experiments.

Project-Based Assessment: Hatchet Activity

Sixth graders at BMS study Hatchet by Gary Paulson. In the book, the main character (Brian) survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness. Students read several wilderness survival passages and do activities on what items would be essential to survive in the wilderness in different climates. To demonstrate understanding of the book, students are tasked with 1) creating their own shelter using only items they could find outside the school, and 2) analyzing a survival pack. The students are placed in groups and are given one tarp and one piece of string. Without any other guidance from the teacher, they are to build a shelter big enough for the whole group to fit in. They can use any materials found outside. There is a fence around our school, so most groups choose to find sticks and use the fence as a lean-to. Some make a tee-pee structure and place the tarp around it. The survival pack comes from a retired Army doctor. Mrs. Chattham adds several items and asks the group to analyze what items would be beneficial to have and what could be used for multi-purposes. There are also some items that are unfamiliar to the students, and they try to think outside the box on how they could use the item in shelter construction or survival.