Who has the Tallest Tower? A STEM Activity.

For many girls and boys middle school is their first real experience in a science class.  Including STEM activities in middle school science is one way to increase their engagement in science. The acronym STEM is fairly specific in nature— referring to science, technology, engineering and math.  This is the topic that I am researching for my master degree.  We had to complete a Action Research project.  My question was how does incorporating STEM activities into the science class impact the confidence of female students in science?  
Each week I am trying to incorporate more STEM activities for my students to complete.

This is our first attempt at doing a STEM activity and it couldn't be easier. I call it TOWER TUMBLE, you will see what I mean when they start building.   All you need are some plastic cups and students to create the tallest tower.  My classes really stepped up to the challenge.  6th hour surprised me.  Until that hour only one other group had gone above 14 cups.  Once a group in 6th hour achieved 16 cups the other groups got motivated to keep trying.  The group ended up with a tower that was 17 cups tall, they got this after I took the picture of their 16 cup tall tower. Darn!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winning height was 17 cups high.  Way to go 6th hour.

Dissecting Cow Eyes + STEM=FUN!

What better STEM activity is there than the Cow Eye Dissection???
This is one of the most talked about labs that we have done at Stucky Middle School.  The Cow Eye dissection lab.  It is both feared and loved.  It can be slimy, grimy, or ooey gooey fun.
We are using fresh cow eyes from a local butcher, Yoder Meats in Yoder,KS, that we have used for the past two years.  They were harvested and frozen from cows brought in for slaughter in the last couple of months.

To prepare for the lab we are going to preview the lab with a video from The Exploratorium in San Francisco.  Click this link  to view a slide presentation that takes you through the steps of the dissection. Click this link to view the video that will take you step by step through the process.
My hope is that during this time the students will get rid of some of their squeamishness and become more comfortable about the lab.    The students will fill out a few short answer questions to go along with the video.

  This lab went so much better this year than last year.  I feel that the preview day had a great impact on how the lab was so successful. I counted only 7 or 8 students that refused to touch the eyeball.  I made the suggestion, for the students that were uncomfortable in handling the eye ball, that they could take pictures and record videos for their group.  This made sure that all were engaged into the lab.  My female students made up 4 of the 8 that would not touch the eyeball.  This is such an improvement from last year.  My students are so awesome.

This is awesome.

How does my manicure look?

   

Is this a meatball?