'Iolani School has been running the Lower School S.T.E.MLab/FabLab/Makerspace
for two years now. At the end of the 2014-2015 school year, we posted the
"Top 10" things we learned our first year. As this school year comes
to a close, we wanted to give our "Top 10" Project Highlights from 2015-2016...Here
are the first five:
Mini-Lessons
The biggest change to our program in the Lower School Lab
was the addition of mini-lessons for grades 2-6. The thought was that we would
introduce a specific skill, tool or software (sometimes all 3) to each of these
grade levels. Because we use the "Engineering is Elementary" program
from the Science Museum-Boston with kindergarten and first grade, we began our
mini-lessons with second grade. The mini-lessons pan out like this: 2nd-Scratch
Jr., 3rd-Scratch & MakeyMakey 4th-3D Printing, 5th-Laser Cutting and 6th-Circuits.
Catapults
During the 6th grade unit on medieval times, the science
class studies the physics of the ancient catapult. As part of this year's
activity, students used the design process to imagine, plan, create and improve
a catapult. After researching different designs, groups of students worked
together to create a prototype out of cardboard. Once that was done, students
were given an introduction to Inkscape and then set off to create a digital
design for their catapult. Once the design was complete, it was cut out of wood
on the laser cutter and glued together. The final activity was to test the
catapult and record data on your distance and accuracy.
Volcano Poems
The fourth grade English teacher decided she wanted to make
their writing high-tech. We decided to have the students illustrate and share a
poem they had written about volcano's using Scratch. After a quick review of
how to program with Scratch, students had a list of requirements that they had
to follow as they created the visual representation of their poem. During this
process, students who knew more about programing in Scratch became
"instructors" to their fellow classmates. In the end, there was some
amazing learning and sharing that went on.
Caddie Project
At the beginning of the year, some of our third grade
teachers decided they wanted to do a design thinking activity with their
classes. When the children came in the first day of school, they found all
their supplies in one box. This lead to a problem that needed a solution.
Taking the classes through Design Thinking, they decided to imagine, plan,
create and improve desk caddies to hold their stuff. First came a cardboard
prototype. Then, with some help, a final version cut on the laser cutter.
Towards the end of the year, the students went around to a
few of our faculty and staff and, following Design Thinking principles, came up
with a caddie idea that could help "client". After meetings to see
what the client needed, the students were given an intro course to 123D Design.
They made 3D renderings of their proposed caddies. These images were shared
with the client for feedback. Students took the feedback and made cardboard prototypes,
which were then shared with the client to receive input on possible
improvements or changes. Finally, students and clients were brought together
and the final caddies were given out.
Communication-Sound
& Light
With our first grade classes, we use units from the
"Engineering is Elementary" program from the Science Museum-Boston.
We use the one unit dealing with Sound & Acoustical Engineering, and
another one focusing on Light & Optical Engineering. Both of these go along
with the curriculum for first grade.
In thinking about the culminating activities for this part
of the curriculum, the teacher had the idea to have the students try to grasp
how you can communicate with light and sound.
First we dealt with sound. Pairs of students had to create
"tin can" phones with a variety of "cans" and
"string", and test them to see how they worked. Next we broke the
classes up into two groups and each had to come up with their own "Morse
code" and try to communicate with the other group across the Lab.
For light, we had a great brainstorming session and came up
with an interesting idea. With the help of one of our teachers from the
Sullivan Center (who teaches electronics/robotics) we were going to have some
of his students join our 1st graders and make a circuit board using a
breadboard, RGB LED, 3 buttons, 3 resistors, 4 jumper wires and a battery. The
problem was arranging the scheduling to get the Upper School kids join us. We
couldn't make schedule work, so we went ahead and had the first graders follow
directions and make their circuit. We thought their fine motor skills might
hinder them from handling the small components, but surprisingly, they did a
great job and all the circuits worked. The next class session we put the
students in pairs and they had to come up with a "Morse code" that
they would use to communicate between each other.
The students did a great job and even if we can't get the
older kids to help us again next year, we are going to repeat this activity.
The second five project highlights will be posted soon.
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