around A-S
lamplighter_spring 2017_11_Layout 1 5/8/17 11:56 AM Page 6
Lamplighter
In & out of the classroom >
4
Gavin Milien ’23 and Darrow Golub ’23 design a submersible.
Third Graders Tackle Real World Challenges in STEAMmods.III by Dr. Mary Meeley Terry and Kristin Filling
Third graders recently completed their rotations in STEAMmods.III, all connected to their bilingual study of Central America and their water unit in science class. The STEAM teaching team centered the modules around a story about a Guatemalan girl, Cristina, who is handicapped but can swim— though not deep enough to retrieve her cousin’s favorite swim goggles from a nearby ocean bed. Cristina and her cousin must design a prototype submersible that will actually do the job!
STEAM teachers designed three challenges connected to the story. The boys rotated through these three challenges applying the engineering design process (EDP), often in teams.
1. Submersibles—One of the
favorite modules involved experimenting with features of a submersible and their sink-or-float and size properties, and modeling how “pole sounding” works to map the ocean floor followed by an introduction to modern day sonar. The boys went on to work in teams to build a model submersible of their own design using Lego.
2. Intooba—Teams of boys
developed 3-dimensional and math skills with a series of challenges to build various skeleton structures using Intooba rods and connectors with different numerical values constrained by a maximum “budget.” These exercises culminated in
Leo Fiszel ’23 and Alex Moeder ’23 carefully construct their crane out of Intooba.
designing and building a working crane with a pulley to extract actual goggles from the “ocean floor” of the classroom. They applied knowledge about crane structure and function from woodshop class, and addition, subtraction and record keeping skills from math class. The materials they used were created by our own Rob McCallum.
3. Scratch—Boys honed their
tech skills with the challenge to design a weaving pattern for a Guatemalan blanket for Cristina’s wheelchair using a visual coding program called Scratch. They helped each other develop lines and color schemes to “weave” the pattern and print it using the design-and-redesign strategies emphasized in the EDP. As a follow up to completing STEAMmods.III, the boys were asked to reflect on their experience by writing about it, setting out their favorite part of all three modules, the least enjoyable aspect, as well as ideas for different STEAM modules in the future.