STEM for Homeschoolers

Graphic tile by E. Keyser, ACTS Geometry student

What is STEM and how is it different from science or math?

"STEM" or "STEM education" are hot topics right now, but they sound like you're into teaching plants or helping flowers.  The name itself is misleading.  STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math, all lumped together in a handy dandy acronym.  So - not plants, but math and science loosely glued together?  No, that's not quite it either.  With this post I'm going to break down what STEM is and compare one day's science class versus STEM class.

What is STEM?

Although you can find umpteen definitions of STEM around, many agree on the following: STEM education combines multiple subjects together while using student-centered learning techniques.  It is an effort to bridge the gap between what a pure science class teaches (biology) and the skills a biological research scientist uses in a career (knows biology, but also needs to communicate well, design and test, use math to analyze data, and interact with other scientific professionals).  STEM education has a heavy focus on design, student initiative and "soft" skills such as collaboration, innovation and invention.

What's a real example of the difference between a science, math or computer class and a STEM class?

I teach several high school math and science courses at a co-op to homeschoolers, along with STEM classes, so I experience this every week. Here's the rundown of what happened on a recent day.

Physics class: we are studying periodic motion, and begin a unit on spring systems.  Students sit on chairs around a table and listen while I lecture and use the whiteboard.  I have several visuals to illustrate how springs work.  Students seem like they understand, and I prompt them for where they see springs in everyday life.  I do all my usual "teacher-ey" things to keep students engaged.  We do a lab exercise, where students in small groups measure data about springs.  I review what their lab report should look like.  End of class. The next class will continue with periodic motion.

STEM class:  Early in the year student groups brainstormed areas of interest in any STEM field.  One group picked alternative energy, so this day we are studying wind tunnels.  I arrive with a fan, clear containers and lots of tools.  After a brief lecture on how wind tunnels design, student groups spread out on the floor to make their own models. I walk between groups, making sure everyone is collaborating well.  While each group works, we talk about how to make smoke lines, how a mesh can help reduce wind turbulence, and what kind of turbines might work well.  We also brainstorm about where turbines could be placed.  We pack up and groups take their models home to finish. The next class will test our models and smoke lines.

Let's run that back.  Both classes were valuable.  Physics was concept-centered, and I used strategies to engage students including a hands-on lab.  STEM was also concept centered, but those concepts drew from multiple sciences and design work.  Students chose the topic and drove the flow of class, working with their peers the entire class.  Their end product will be a workable wind tunnels to test turbine prototypes, along with enhanced collaboration and design skills.

In coming posts I'll outline some age-specific STEM opportunities and what some barriers to STEM involvement are for homeschoolers.  If you have any experience with STEM and would like to add to the conversation, drop me a line at marycsaville@gmail.com or on twitter at @marycsaville.

The Wright Stuff

Image credit: Jm@n Google 3-D warehouse 2011

What can you do with 200 square feet of corrugated cardboard, 100 feet of cardboard rollers, yards of yarn and Makedo connectors? If you add in over 20 students and 5 hours in the hot sun, you get a half-scale model of the Wright Flyer.


Why? Why would we do such a thing? I'm slightly crazy and the awesome students were actually really happy to do it. We finished up our Intro to Engineering course for the year with a four-week unit on the STEM concepts of recycling - where do plastic bottles, diapers, cardboard and glass come from, and where do they go when we throw them away. To "tangify" the lessons (I'm totally coining that word, meaning to make tangible) we did mini-challenges with Makedo and then brainstormed a LARGE group build using only recyclable materials.

In order to practice the design cycle, smaller student teams imagined projects and pitched them to everyone. Students voted and the winning project was to model the Wright Brothers' first flying machine, the 1903 Wright Flyer.
Working off of a Google SketchUp model of the Flyer (credit: J-m@n) from the 3-D warehouse, we shrunk it to half size and printed multiple views with dimensions. Students brought boxes, tubes, plastic bags and old yard, lots of it.


Although our ultimate goal of constructing such a solid Flyer that we could actually launch it failed, we did manage to put together over 75% of the very complicated airplane. I think each of us knows a ton more about Orville and Wilbur's ingenious design and how to work together on a project. We ran into the same issues that every project has: time overruns, material shortages, weather factors - but there's nothing better than practice to learn how to deal with these in a productive manner and keep progressing to a goal. Excellent work, students - you really did something special.

Use Less by Makedo-ing More

Photo credit http://makedo.com.au/creatures/ retrieved 4/27/11, © Makedo and Paul Justin

We're now starting a multi-part unit on green engineering and STEM concepts that is similar to the Sugru challenge (see posts from Febr.). We've got eco-things to learn and a large-scale project to design, all tied into the science and technology surrounding the environment. Now, before your eyes begin to glaze over at the thought of an environmental lecture and guilt-trip into recycling, give me just a minute. I am just like anyone out there. I recycle when it's convenient, try to reuse things, watch what I throw down the drain but definitely could do a better job of being eco-friendly.

What I find over and over again with my students, though, is that inspiring them to take hold of concepts through fun activities is much more effective than trying to grind subject matter into them. I'm taking a cue from them right now as I've recently been very moved to think differently about the materials I use and then discard. Learning doesn't always have to taste like fish oil. Sometimes it can taste like popcorn.

Our new partner in this effort is the awesome Australian company Makedo. Makedo describes themselves as "inspiring social change through playful creativity". They make a set of universal connectors and hinges that can transform a pile of paper into a toy, bird or a car (my own kids love their gallery of creations). Makedo is especially fond of cool designs and collaboration. We've got enough of their universal connectors and tools for all thirty engineering students and any others who are interested in making something BIG and FUN out of materials that would otherwise have been thrown away.

Makedo and STEM concepts came together in yesterday's lesson:

Students learned facts about the size and scale of human trash production, like how humans generate more than four pounds per person per day. We also ran through the complete life cycle of cardboard: beginning with fast-growing pine trees trunks, wood pulp is shredded, "digested" by sodium hydroxide to break up wood fibers and then pressed, rolled and dried into sheets or shapes. Once used, cardboard can be stuck back into digesters with fresh wood pulp and reused (as long as it doesn't have plastic coating on it). We named and discussed local recyclers like Van der Linde that offer single-stream recycling.

Finally, they practiced the design cycle using Makedo connectors and reusable materials from my home, which were cardboard, plastic bottles, caps and grocery paper bags. Their goal was to make a pet or creature in only 15 minutes using only Makedo and the recyclables.



If you want to explore more, see these links:

Common recycling facts
http://www.recycling-revolution.com/recycling-facts.html

How corrugated cardboard is made
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Corrugated-Cardboard.html

Recycling cardboard
http://cardboardrecycling.org/

Keep it Simple

I'm thankful for lots of things in this world. Some of those things are General Tso's chicken, hugs from my kids, and simple machines.

Simple machines doesn't mean machines that don't know much. It means tools that provide mechanical advantage, or increase the amount of work someone is able to do. The six simple machines are the pulley, wheel and axle, lever, wedge, screw and inclined plane.

Any of these six can be combined to make more complicated machines, like.... marshmallow launchers.

I have to admit that as a teacher my lesson plans often include elements to make me laugh, but this time I think it was the students who got the laugh.

This week myself, two bags of large marshmallows and twenty-some students covered the basics of simple machines and used at least one simple machine to make three launchers: high-flying, far-flying, and precise flying to a target.

It was highly amusing to see four teams of students working furiously with styrofoam cups, lego blocks, rubber bands, foam plates, bamboo skewers, a yardstick, paper and tape. Launchers went on a table and marshmallows went in the launcher so that no part of a student touched the mini-astronaut before it flew.

There were a number of lever-type launchers with fulcrums, some "wheel and axle" devices with the skewer poked through a plate and a notable, alarming bow and arrow. To be fair, the only simple machine really in the bow and arrow was a foam plate wheel on the bottom, but they did cover themselves. The arrow group stuck a marshmallow on a skewer, ran the skewer through a hole in the yardstick, used rubber bands for tension, and swish - I've never seen a marshmallow move so fast.

I have to disclaim here that my husband was rightfully upset with me since I had as the target for precise launchers my face, and more specifically my mouth. In my defense I was picturing soft arcs of delicious marshmallows, not speedy dangerous marshmallows, but still - don't shoot sharp things at anyone's face, not even if the sharp things are tipped with marshmallows.

The goals of this exercise were to teach a STEM concept (simple machines), foster creativity, practice the design cycle AGAIN, and have students own these ideas by doing and making. I'd say it went well. My only change would be to have someone else hold the bag of marshmallows. I think I ate about twenty of them.