Welcome Back To STEAM!

This week the students were welcomed back to STEAM, and Mrs. Whitney, Mrs. Newton, Mrs. Peduzzi, and Ms. Kniffin have been planning and brainstorming how to make this year of STEAM even better than the last!

As an umbrella under which we are going to work this year, we have decided to incorporate the United Nations' Global Goals into our curriculum, as a direction to steer our units and activities and make the learning all the more meaningful.

The first activity to kick of the year was the Pasta Design Challenge, where we asked the students to create the "best" hotel they could out of pasta and marshmallows, which would also be able to hold up a small water balloon "aquarium" on the top floor.  The younger students had a bit of a hard time working together to create one structure, but by 2nd grade they were consistently successful in creating a freestanding structure.  That was okay, though, as the focus on the first few weeks of STEAM are always more about learning to work together, persevere, and use the materials creatively!

When testing their designs, it became clear that the students who had access to more materials were more successful in holding up the water balloon, and that was our intention.  We purposefully split the grades in half with some students having access to more materials than others.  This understanding and strong feelings toward inequality of resources will help shape our first unit, which introduces students to the Global Goals.  This helps them determine the role they want to play in being a "Goalkeeper," or a person who works toward solving big global issues, such as inequality.  Big ideas for our little builders!

Some of the feelings students expressed about the uneven distribution of resources during the challenge were:

"It wasn't working and it wasn't sturdy and that made me sad and frustrated."

"I was bummed I didn't have the same materials."

"I was mad."

"I was sad when my partners were upset."

"I felt bad for the other tables who didn't have the same stuff."

"I was sad because they had better stuff than us.  We didn't have the same things."

"We tried really hard, but it didn't work."

"I was sad because I felt sorry I had more than them."

"I was happy we had the good things, but sad because they had the bad things."

Grades 3-5 fared a little better, and their structures were more elaborate and met with more success.

Some of their feelings on the challenge were:

"I felt sorry for the yellow tables."

"It wasn't fair."
"It must have been harder for the yellow tables."

"Why do they get bigger materials?"

"I was upset."

"It was tougher for us."

"I thought we both would have the same."

"When I saw the other materials I thought of a billion more ideas!"

When we move into the next big unit that focuses on creating something to help people who do not have the same resources that we have here in the United States, we are hoping these feelings will help create empathy within the students for these individuals, and a sense of gratitude of all we are lucky enough to have here.

Have no fear that STEAM ended on a sad note, however. All students were able to celebrate that they achieved our goal based on our belief statements.  Everyone was able to use the materials to create something, use their imaginations to design something new, and use failure as an opportunity to learn!  Way to go, engineers! We know this year is going to be full of big ideas, and even bigger successes!