STEM Video: Make a Lunar Crater Lab (NASA)
If you plan to use this hands-on lunar activity in your STEM Discovery classroom and you have video access, NASA’s demonstration is a perfect addition to get the exploration started.
Thanks to NASA JPL for their continued support for teachers and curious future scientists in the classroom!
Sunrise STEM Club: Reaching Minorities, Reaching The Stars
It’s the real video testimony from PBS featured Nanoscientist who recharge my excitement about the premier of our STEM club, kicking off in January. The sunrise schedule idea came about via a curious student and a conversation with a teacher who saw a dwindling crowd for the afternoon Physics club on campus. The after school crowd has football, basketball, or needs to be home to care for elementary age siblings.
Educators: You Need To Pour Yourself a Big Cup of Calm Down
Until they figure out what they need, we need to pour ourselves a big cup of calm down and do what educators do: share knowledge, empower creativity, generate a spark of hidden genius, promote self responsibility, celebrate self and community, and be patient. No one has all the answers. Choose not to be a victim. Do what you can. Let the rest go.
As an educator, tough days remind me that I can only do my best. So I pour myself big cup of CALM DOWN and reflect.
Cell Phones for STEM: Technology as a Learning Tool in a Tight Economy
The Reality of Technology in Our Classrooms
Our students were born in a world with satellites and cell phone towers. But the policy in the school yard has that technology tool held hostage in their backpack or back pocket. I bet if I took a survey tomorrow morning, more of my students would have their cell phones in their backpack and less would have a pencil or pen. From the vista of my discovery lab classroom, I see cell phones as an immediate solution to a contagious interest in science and engineering for our students.~Kay Borglum (2011)
Changing Social Expectations in the Education Equation
As a STEM (science) teacher, I experience a more meaningful day with my learners from bell-to-bell when we blend real-world problems that enable them to safely problem-solve with meaning. Immediate feedback is generated through their daily learning journals in my Space Lab classes.
I promote high expectations and use instant revision to energize it. This past Friday, I invested 12 minutes towards how-to- improve the three lesson facts each student picks for their daily journal. “Don’t pick facts that you cannot connect to your life. That is boring. Boring is the opposite of discovery. Find facts that are hooked into what you do, what you want to do, and what thrills you. Then, your journal activity becomes something personal, something meaningful.” I saw an instant return on that 12 minute investment.~Kay Borglum, STEM Science Teacher (FL)
Engineering Your Classroom for Meaningful STEM Learning
Learning is a dynamic result of combining chunks of information and using that knowledge to create, describe, model, and connect to other ideas in future lessons. Reverse engineering in the classroom divides the lesson into steps on a path to meaningful learning and understanding for both the teacher and the student. Always begin with the end in mind.
Writing On The Wall: Rules for Rusty
As governors and administrators modulate class size and craft budgets for teaching the next generation of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and innovators, parents cannot be removed from the equation of success for their child.
By The Way, No Child Left Behind Law Not Intended to Work Unchanged
The education of our nation is a vital, dynamic part of where we are going and a history of where we’ve risen out of in tough times. Education is a spoke on one of the wheels of the American wagon. It is the support that moves us all down the road to a better quality of life by making more aware choices at the grocery store and at the voting booth.~Kay Borglum, MS
