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With the recent success of India’s lunar landing and interesting articles sent to my inbox by NASA, I wanted to share some relevant STEM lessons my students loved! In their article, “Why Bring Mars Samples Down To Earth?”, NASA explains the purpose behind their Mars Sample Return mission.  Photo Credit: mars.nasa.gov Moon Rock Challenge This reminded me of the Moon Rock Challenge mission I created for my students following the news about China’s rover landing on the moon's dark side. (Update on mission HERE.) In the challenge, student engineers must build a device to grab moon rocks (in our case, we used the LEGO WEDO grabber build but you could use recyclable materials instead of robotics).  The main element of this challenge is that the student grabbing the rocks (packing peanuts) is behind a barrier and can’t see them. They must communicate with another engineer who has the visuals! They must work together to gather as many rocks (could be the Moon or Mars!) for scientists to bring back for analysis. I built collection vessels with recycled large cardboard tubes, but you could use solo cups or any other easy-to-find cylinder.  We talked a lot about how space scientists must communicate effectively with the devices they send to the Moon or Mars in order to successfully complete the task.
Moon Rover Challenge This was a lesson (Slides) I created for a professional development session with elementary educators. My intent was for them to learn to use the LEGO WEDO 2.0 kits as well as learn how to integrate STEM into non-fiction literacy, science content, math measurement, and the effective use of technology apps. You could copy and edit these slides to include different robots like LEGO Spike, BeeBots, Dash, etc. if you don’t have WEDO 2.0 (which has sadly been discontinued). Or you could have the engineers make it out of recycled materials, not using robots at all!
Do you have a favorite Space STEM activity? I'd love to hear about it! #BetterTogether
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I don’t know about you, but I love when a new Edutopia newsletter pops up in my inbox. The one I just received includes an article about six evidence-backed tips for scaffolding student learning.
As I was reading the advice, I couldn’t help but think about the perfect tie-in to how we scaffold learning through STEM activities. So here are my STEM takes on the six they discuss in their article. 
#1 Clarity
The article describes how you should make sure your instructions and materials are designed to optimize student understanding and learning. When we introduce an engineering activity to students this is so important. Whether we are starting with a foundational picture book, relevant current event, or other hooks, we need to make sure we are walking the students through the process and actions we are expecting, and clearing up any questions they may have prior to beginning. This allows them to see the big picture, sets the tone, and decreases negative behaviors that often come when students are confused or anxious. I always use my guiding slide deck with the same engineering design process (EDP) image to provide clarity and better student understanding. Here’s an example: #2 Build Background Knowledge For me, this is where the IMAGINE step in the EDP is crucial. In addition to children imagining how they will solve a problem, I use this step to show pictures or an effective video related to the challenge to promote discussions and provide that crucial background knowledge that many students may not have. For example, when engineering “boats” for the Who Sank the Boat lesson, many students may not have first-hand experience with what different boats look like. So I share the images below and we talk about the materials, shapes, designs, and purposes of the various boats. This provides at least a small bit of background knowledge prior to the actual challenge. Background knowledge can also be triggered through discussions the class has while reading a foundational picture book! 
#3 Be Multi-Modal
Ah, yes! STEM integration’s superpower! By nature, engineering and hands-on science, math, and technology learning are multi-modal. Children are asked to listen to a story, watch a video, or view a demonstration of a phenomenon. They are then tasked with drawing out their plans to solve a problem. Then comes the crucial building, manipulating, experimenting, and/or crafting. And throughout that amazing process, they are continually communicating with their partner or team, sharing results at the end, and in many other ways stating what they have learned. STEM is naturally multi-modal! 
#4 Use Graphic Organizers and Anchor Charts
Whether in the regular classroom, the STEM lab, or the media center maker space, graphic organizers and anchor charts provide students with just that…an anchor for all the learning taking place. The Edutopia article states that “In the early stages of learning—as students are grappling with unfamiliar information—it’s helpful to supply prompts, hints, or even partially completed anchor charts and graphic organizers to make learning more effective” In my opinion, when conducting STEM activities, these anchor charts should first be filled with student discoveries, ideas, and conclusions. Then, through class discussion, if misconceptions related to content need to be clarified, additional information can be added. We need to be careful to allow the students to work through failure without the crutch of constant hints or prompts about what WE think they should do. As teachers this is hard; to step back even when we know they are making a mistake or their build won’t work. But this is where the best learning occurs, and building an anchor chart throughout the activity can support that. 
Photos via https://www.playdoughtoplato.com/stem-project-straw-bridges/ and https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Media/Engineers-Week/
#5 Use Pre-Lesson Activities
Although the article focuses on the more traditional content application of providing high-level quiz questions prior to the learning activity, my favorite pre-lesson activity when integrating STEM is reading a relevant well-written picture book, no matter what age the students are (high school students still love picture books!). For great collections of picture books that are fantastic for STEM integration check out my constantly growing Pinterest Board HERE. 
Shameless Plug!
#6 Ask Meta-Cognitive Questions
One way I’ve found to keep myself from “helping” students too much during the engineering design process is to ask questions that help them develop their metacognition. Questions/prompts like:
What other ways do you help scaffold STEM activities for your students? I’d love to hear about them! #BetterTogether
I was recently asked what resources I use to develop lessons that integrate STEM and literacy/picture books. There are mainly 5 different processes I rely on to generate lesson ideas for my students.  Image by Hermann Kollinger from Pixabay Scan The Library I often love to create unique lesson ideas while sitting among the picture book section of my school’s library. I love to skim the titles, plots, and characters and imagine an engineering challenge that would integrate well with the book. As you know, kids of all ages LOVE to be read picture books so there is immediate buy in! In addition, well-written picture books include amazing vocabulary, plot development, and social/emotional connections! They are also usually short enough to provide the foundation for the STEM lesson. If your time is really limited, consider collaborating with the classroom teacher or media specialist (depending on your role) and have them read and discuss the story during their lesson, after which you can conduct the STEM lesson! If you have a picture book you’d like to use but just can’t seem to think of a good STEM lesson to integrate, reach out! It’s my favorite part of the job!  Connect With Your Twitter PLN It’s hard to believe it’s been almost two decades since my friend Danita convinced me to join Twitter for professional purposes. It has connected me to the most amazing educators around the globe and provided incredible free professional development! I tell educators all the time that I can gather AT LEAST 5 new STEM lesson ideas EVERY DAY just by scrolling through my feed. Because my Twitter PLN is so amazing, I often reach out for new lesson ideas. My post might simply say, “Who’s conducted a great elementary engineering lesson using the book _____?” And the responses start coming! If you haven’t started connected with other passionate STEM educators on Twitter, I would encourage you to give it a try! Let's connect there!  Utilize Artificial Intelligence OMG, friends! If you haven’t used ChatGPT or another AI engine (like Curipod - post coming soon) to help you come up with new STEM lesson ideas, stop reading this RIGHT NOW and give it a try! If you sign up for a free ChatGPT account it will keep a record of all your prompt searches so you can come back to them later. You can also share the results with colleagues! Want to see it in action? Click HERE! Talk about time saving when you are struggling for a new idea!  Search and Curate Pinterest Boards For many of us this is an oldie but still goodie! Many people use Pinterest for personal interests, but there are amazing educational pin collections as well! Create or login to your account, type “STEM and Literacy” in the search box and voila! A huge rabbit hole for you to explore for the next several hours! LOL! Don’t forget to create boards of your own to organize all your amazing finds! I am currently working on creating new boards for my new Collazo Cove account and will be transferring many from my personal collection. Still a work in progress (actually just starting)! But feel free to FOLLOW me now so you don’t miss anything! I want the boards to be helpful to you! Read Blog Posts I used to be an avid blog reader when the old Google Reader was alive (yes, I’m that old!). I recently learned about another blog aggregator called Feedly and have started using it. Blog aggregators collect the newest posts published by bloggers you like to follow and bring them straight to your feed. Every time I find a new blog that relates to the topic of STEM, I add it to my Feedly collection. It’s like opening an idea treasure box whenever I have a few minutes to skim the posts. HERE is a quick video on how I set it up! I'd love to know how you generate new ideas to integrate STEM and Literacy! Please share your suggestions! We're better together! If you haven't yet, please join my email list to get all the newest updates from Collazo Cove!  |
Kim CollazoSTEM Advocate and Picture Book Author Archives
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