Welcome to the Stem Lab
We are so excited for this year of STEM lab at New Prospect Elementary School.
Connect with me and other STEM lab students on my flipgrid https://flipgrid.com/ec1cc086 |
We are so excited for this year of STEM lab at New Prospect Elementary School.
Connect with me and other STEM lab students on my flipgrid https://flipgrid.com/ec1cc086 |
We are off to an awesome start in the STEM lab this year. The first week all classes learned the GROUPS expectations and science safety rules. The 2nd week of school we learned about the exciting Great American Solar eclipse. I loved seeing the excitement in their eyes when they were learning about the eclipse. 3rd week of STEM Kindergarten students became scientists by completing a science experiment. They learned that a hypothesis is a prediction. They had a blast mixing "chemicals" and making a chemical reaction. 1st graders used science tools. They observed camel hair, sunflower parts, goldfish fins, and a honeybee leg under the microscope. They also measured liquids with beakers and compared weights of objects with a balance scale. 2nd grade read the book "Mad Margaret experiments with the Scientific Method." Then conducted their own experiment using the steps that Margaret taught them. The question they wanted answered was "Which material makes the best paper airplane?" 3rd and 4th grades practiced the STEM GROUPS expectations by completing their first group task. Students helped our new "friend" Harry by building him a perch so he could look around the room. This is the first of many Harry adventures that we will have this year. 5th graders began their coding journey this week with Dash. I am so excited to see the awesome things they program Dash to do.
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Kindergarten: The Kindergarten students did an amazing job building the Mayflower for the Thanksgiving program. I was so impressed with their engineering skills. Now the Kindergarten classes are discovering how things move with help from our friend Ron the armadillo! You should be seeing some letters coming home with ideas of experiments to try. 1st Grade: The first graders made weather stations in class. They made a rain gauge, wind vane, temperature box, and anemometer. I know we have a few future meteorologists among us. After we completed the weather station we moved on to dental health and demonstrated the proper way to brush our teeth by "brushing" a partner’s teeth! 2nd Grade: The second graders are building Native American homes. They were to choose from the Cherokee tribe or Creek tribe. The students researched the types of homes the tribes lived in and then drew sketches of the homes they planned to build. The students gathered materials and are in the process of building them. They are looking very authentic. 3rd Grade: The third grade just completed a long unit on building tree houses. They did an amazing job and had a lot of fun creating their tree houses. The 3rd graders are currently studying pollution in their science classes. So i had them create dirty wastewater in class using coffee grounds, vinegar, salt, dirt, and rocks. Then they had to come up with a plan to clean the water with the materials I provided. This was a lot of fun. Next week they will list the pros and cons of their original plan and come up with an even better plan to clean wastewater. 4th grade: What is the latest craze among 10-15 years olds right now? WATER BOTTLE FLIPPING! So I decided to have the 4th grade discover the science behind the perfect bottle flip. They are testing to find out the best bottle type and the perfect water amount. Once they discover the perfect combination, we will create our own water bottle flipping trick videos. 5th grade: The fifth graders have been building inventions that will make the world a better place. They had to draw up blue prints and then use the materials in my classroom to make their invention reality. On the 16th of December the students will participate in Shark Tank. The students will present their inventions to a panel of judges (Shark tank) and the judges will decide if they want to invest in their inventions. They have come up with some awesome inventions. For example, glasses with windshield wipers, shoes that rake and compost leaves, a lock on the water dispenser on the refrigerator to keep little ones from getting water on the floor in the kitchen, and the list goes on! WOW! We have been busy! All I can say is New Prospect Elementary is full of creative scientists and I am so glad I get to do science with them! We had MANY tape donations this past week! Thank you to every family that donated. Tape will be an ongoing need for the STEM lab this year.
This week we will begin building moon boxes to help students visualize and understand the phases of the moon. We will need foam balls for this project. They need to about the size of a tennis ball or smaller. Thanks in advance!!
The 3rd grade classes are still constructing their tree houses. Students were given the task to build a tree house in a region in Georgia. The houses must include the basic nesscities like electricity, water, and an indoor toilet. Some students are building tree houses with solar panels, others chose to use wind turbines to create electricity. Students also have developed ways to collect rainwater and filter it to be used in their tree houses. They had the most fun researching composting toilets. I am so impressed with their creativity.
4th graders have completed their ecosystems projects. They are displayed outside the Media Center in front of the courtyard. They did a great job and had fun gathering materials for these!
Our 4th grade STEM students are creating ecosystems in a bottle. Students are studying Native American tribes and the ecosystem they are native to. Each group will be assigned an ecosystem to research and then will create that ecosystem in a bottle. We are in need of clear straight (No Coke or Diet Coke brand) 2 liter bottles. Students will be collecting soil and rocks around the school but may need to gather some supplies for this project at home. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to assist in the building of these ecocolumns.
The 3rd grade STEM classes have been "employed" by Tree House Masters to build tree houses for residents in the different regions in Georgia. The students will be doing research on the type of weather and trees native to the region in Georgia they are assigned. Then they will design and build models of their tree houses. We are needing shoe boxes, toilet paper rolls, popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and A LOT of tape (duct or masking). I don't know who is more excited about this project, me or the students. And don't worry parents, we are completing this in class. :)
I am so proud and amazed at the creativity the STEM students are showing. I have presented them with some "challenging" challenges and they have exceeded my expectations! So proud of the SCIENTISTS at New Prospect Elementary! This week we discussed ways to stay safe in the science lab and we also discussed ways to be a team player in our groups. We also discovered that we are ALL scientists. I am so excited for next week. Each grade will be doing different experiments and the lab is going to be a very busy place! I can't wait!
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Mrs. Brandy Davis
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