Young learners often explore properties of different materials in the world around them, but they are not as often given opportunities to create materials containing unique properties for exploration. Adhesives have exciting properties to examine, not only because of their unusual bonding capabilities but because of the many ways they are used to solve problems in the world today.
Author
Nathalie Ludwig
No longer can we say that 21st Century jobs are jobs “of the future.” Those jobs are here. As we embrace STEM and all of the amazingness that comes with it, we must be sure not to allow communication skills to fall to the wayside. This five-day unit helps students build workplace communication skills.
Author
John Kurzawa
Start a school-based FIRST Lego League Team and compete in a regional challenge.
Author
Christopher Joy-Hogg
This project will focus on the development of a student-to-student instructional program to foster collaboration and promote active learning in the school environment. Students will acquire peer teaching and learning strategies to be applied in any subject area. A majority of lessons and content in this project will focus mainly on but is not limited to, 2nd-grade elementary mathematics and science standards.
Author
Maggie Hershey-Mason
Middle school students (grades 6-8) will be able to create custom 3D printed forms to add to Bosch’s EcoShape Kit to invent a new way to use the kit, focusing on the discipline of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math).
Author
Kris Gorman
How often do your students ask, “How will I use this in real life?”
After becoming a Kenan Fellow, I gained many useful ideas from classroom setup to integrating STEM during and after school. My internship at IBM provided me with several resources to give students a global view of how their future careers affect the world.
To show my students how to use math and science, I use time after and during school to demonstrate the possibilities they have for their future involving STEM. After partnering with parents and members of the community, I have created my schools first Robotics Club and I facilitate the Data Science Seminar once a week. Please use this site as a resource to help guide your endeavors of using STEM in the classroom.
Author: Tamiko Williams
Why spend millions of dollars and countless hours studying worms, yeast, fish, and mice? These creatures look and act so differently from us, yet we are more related than you may think. In this unit, students explore the structure and function of DNA, discover our relatedness to other organisms, learn the characteristics of the ideal model organism, and create trading cards that summarize why model organisms are important in scientific research.
Author: Anna Glasgow
Over a period of two days, students will complete a design challenge centered around sustainable exterior building products that are designed for high performance during severe hailstorms. This lesson uses Design Thinking as a framework for students to learn how climate change is impacting more than just the environment. Manufacturers of roofing, siding, and windows are taking this into consideration when designing new exterior building products. The culminating activity in this lesson will be a product designed by students to withstand severe hail.
Author: Leslie Horne
Scenario: Carowinds is redesigning Planet Snoopy (a kids’ play area in the theme park) for the upcoming season, and this is the students’ opportunity to provide input and submit a design to enhance the kids’ section of the park.
Lesson: Students will work in groups of 3-4 to create a Planet Snoopy exhibit (3-D model and map). The purpose of the Planet Snoopy redesign is to demonstrate how sound and the size of the rides affects an amusement park’s design. Students will take on the role of architects.
Author: Jilly Barclay
In this project, students will be assigned one of 4 regions of the United States – Northeast, South, Midwest, or West. Within each regional group, every student will be assigned one of 5 criteria pollutants (lead is excluded, in part because airborne lead has been well controlled for several decades now, but also because the history of lead pollution is used as a project launch). The project begins with each student being tasked to become an “expert” in his/her pollutant (Task 1).
Once each group has an expert for each pollutant, the group moves to the second stage of the project – to create an “Air Quality Measure” that is based upon the five criteria pollutants (Task 2). No formula is offered – the groups are free to construct this formula in a way that seems right to them based on the expert knowledge of the pollutants in each group. This task culminates with the groups generating a data set for this new air quality measure, based on the actual pollutant data from EPA.
Author: Bill Worley
Students create exercise/play equipment for a “pet-themed” playground based on animals that they have chosen and researched. Students will have an opportunity to move through Active Brain Lab stations that are designed with 2 different animals in mind (dog and frog). They will be focused on understanding the differences between the two different animals and how they move. A special emphasis will be put on being able to appropriately use movement vocabulary to describe how the animal will move as each is using the exercise equipment.
Students will then complete research about their chosen animal. Students will need to research their animal’s size and capabilities, and how they meet their basic needs; more specifically, how the animal moves within its habitat. Then, students will create a toy/exercise equipment that could be used at the “pet playground”. Finally, students will develop a presentation about their animal and the “pet playground” equipment to present to peers and invited guests.
Author: Emily Warnke
During this lesson, students are guided through an initial understanding of electrical energy and production. As their learning progresses, they will explore energy production using photovoltaics (PVs) and use the National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) online simulator, PVWatts. The synthesis of this information will result in a basic understanding of the economics of solar energy production. Secondary students will
continue their research by accessing their state’s energy portfolio through the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Students will synthesize what they have learned and apply Design Thinking Skills to create a Solar Charging Station or a model Electric Car.
Author: David Sander
This project helps students understand force, motion and the relationship between them. Student teams are challenged to help Carowinds create a new, fun themed zone with rides. Teams will create a 3D model of one of their themed rides. A ride list, zone map, and radio advertisement will also be created and used to present their created zone. The best in 5th grade will be determined using a rubric and Carowinds visitors and school administration.
Teams of students will present their final ride list, a zone map, model ride, and radio advertisement to their peers, parents and special guests from the school and Carowinds. Each team will be ranked based on specific criteria by the special guests and a winning theme park will be selected based on the highest score.
Author: Michelle McElhiney
In this lesson, students will apply the scientific method—using N-P-K soil test kits on a local farm—to develop a real-world application of how abiotic factors, like nitrogen, can impact the rate of photosynthesis, protein synthesis, and the cost of the food we eat.
Author: Will Edwards
This lesson allows students to take on the role of real scientists, as they identify species from one another. Dr. Reade Robert’s lab research focuses especially on Lake Malawi Cichlids, which are some of the most colorful of the Family Cichlidae. There are more than 1,600 described species of cichlids, worldwide, and they comprise one of the largest vertebrae families on Earth. In Lake Malawi alone, there are at least 700 species, with more being discovered and estimates of as many as 1,000 species in the lake. It is the ninth largest lake in the world and has more species of fish than any other lake.
Author: Linda Dion