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?

What are Minerals?

The plan for this week is to learn about minerals.  What are they?  What are there properties? Where do we use them in our lives?
To accomplish this we are taking notes about What is a Mineral?  I have a power point and then they took a few notes.  Here is a link link to the powerpoint (thanks sciencequeen) Minerals are SNIFIC.  They are solid, naturally occuring, Inorganic, Fixed composition, and have a Crystal form.
Then we are doing a Web Quest about Minerals in our lives.  Here is the  http://www.westerville.k12.oh.us/userfiles/4170/Classes/5610/Mineral%20Webquest.pdf I did a google search and came up with this.  There are several things I like about it.  It tells them several of the minerals that are around them at all times.  It is interactive and has a video with it too.
After doing this we are going to be testing actual mineral properties like streak, luster, hardness, cleavage, and color.  Next week we are going to be making crystals with bluing agent.

Bullying Awareness at DRS

This last month I had my student create anti-bullying PSAs for students at DRS.  They had really good ideas.  After they recorded their video they used Microsoft Movie Maker to edit and finish their videos.
We determined that bullying incidents will increase with awareness but we feel that comes from everyone being more aware of what is bullying.  Most people think that every mean thing done by another child is bullying. There are three things to look for; Repeated actions over time, There is a power imbalance, and  Intention of the actions.  Most students want to report bullying but are disappointed by the results, because they didn't meet the bullying requirements.  So the next time it happens they say "Its no use, the office won't do anything about it".  All incidents are treated seriously but sometimes they may not end up the way we want them to.

This one is mine so I could see what it was like to produce one,  I created it by using several clips from my students. 

Here are the videos that my classes produced.

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Agenda For the Week of October 13th-18th 2014

Monday 10/13 -> Chapter 2-1 notes, handout from Mr. Kealey

Tuesday 10/14 -> Review the notes from Ch 2-1 and take a QUIZ over the notes

Wednesday 10/15 -> 3 Fault Model; Color, Cut, Glue/tape it together

Thursday 10/16 -> Answer questions about the model

Friday 10/17 ->  FRIDAY STEM Activity 

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

All of us remember this question poised by the young child as he goes around and asks several different animals.


Finally he gets to the wise old owl.  They test how many it takes and find out it takes 3.

See the 1969 commercial here. 
Was the owl correct?
How many does it really take?  Does the flavor make a difference?  Does the gender of the tester change our results?
This week in C12 we will be testing the question that has been teasing us forever.
What flavor will you test?  Science is fun and tasty

This is our count from 6 bags of Tootsie Pops

Counting their lick tallies

Making tallies for his licks

Tallying their licks

trying to get to the center of their Tootsie Pops

Focused

Come fly with us at Stucky Middle school!

Tomorrow in room C-12 at Stucky Middle School we will be attempting our first lab of the year.  I choose the Paper Helicopter lab as a first one because it is easy to set up, it takes the students through the scientific method quickly, and it fits into our interactive notebooks nicely.  You know the lab with the paper that looks like a paper rabbit after a long day in the meadow. This is the first step in our review of the independent and dependent variables.  They must predict if the length of the wing (independent variable) will increase or decrease the time aloft (dependent variable).  Paper helicopters are fun and quick to conduct to see what they remember from last year.

Here are some of my students in action with the lab.

Testing during 4th hour.

Testing during 5th \hour.

Recording their data.  Good work girls.

5th hour hard at work.

4th hour timing their flight.

3rd hour "testing" posing for a pic.

4th hour calculating the mean time for descent.

3rd hour recording data