It was really fun to dust off the high school/college brain cells-what's left- and do conversions! I love doing conversions, to me it's like alchemy, you really do transform one thing mathematically into another. I went back and did the conversions I missed at the beginning of class too just because. Those little Nano cars are a kick but I think Colin had a good point about high-centering in 3" of snow. Wouldn't it be great to have something that efficient that could roll Alaska style? In the meantime, it's just fun to go to class and see what we're going to do next! The one thing I did learn on Monday was how enormously helpful the people at the HelpDesk are, even though they couldn't fix my mic problem- brand new headset too! They got me through some ugly malware so I could just connect. I'll be at a different computer next week! Anyway, it's fun to go and listen to the archived versions of classes because you get to hear the conversations the instructors have among themselves while we are working. Listening to them talk, I got great insight into how I might set some of these ideas for my students, especially since I'm not always confident about presenting some of this material as an integrated lesson at this point. Listening to people model the process was an added bonus. That liquid density website was a blast and I'm hopeful that it's one website I can take my fifth graders to at school this week.
I haven't fleshed out entirely what I want to do for extended STEM lessons and Minecraft but I know I want to spend time with levers and another extended period with pistons, maybe in combination or patterning with them. I would like to extend my Harry Potter ideas into Chemistry, a la Potions and Enchantment in Minecraft as well but I haven't figured out how to make those connections more solid. The potions stuff in Minecraft is really quite fantastical but I would like to somehow make solid connections to real world chemistry. That is a goal.
I was reading on the blog, but I didn't take notes about who mentioned doing space and building a rocketship in Minecraft but I know that there is info out there. My kids spend a long time listening to StampyLongHead and IBallisticSquid youtube.com videos. They've talked about going to the moon and building rocketships. I know Kate tried with a friend but am not sure of the outcome. Ben is super keen on building a submarine. Truth is, I don't feel like I'm teaching anybody anything but I'm having a great time learning!
As far as STEM topics I'd like to explore for this class, I'm just enjoying being pleasantly surprised each week at what we do, how we can bring it to students and what I remember from my own past, a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away! My deepest wish is always finding ways of bringing STEM to the K-2 set so anytime we get to spend extending in that direction is wonderful.
Chris, a game I just demo'd the other day was Kerbal Space Program. The demo version is free. In this game the player is trying to build a rocket to get the Kerbals into space, to their moon, etc. The player figures out how they want to build the rocket, how to fly it, what changes to make. Worth playing at home to see if it'd work for your students. The Kerbals are cute, too, in a 1977 engineer sort of way.
ReplyDeletehttps://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
In beginning and intermediate algebra at UAS, we tend to ask a fair amount of word problems on combining solutions of different percentages (or different solutions) to come up with some final solution with a particular percentage. To bring this to the K-2 level, could you come up with some sort of recipe for a particular potion? They could determine how much of each to get some final amount - then scale up or scale down for a bigger or smaller amount. Or have them find how much of a missing solution will need to be added to other fixed amounts for the right proportions. You could add as much chemistry / properties of each solution (or solid / gas) as you think they can handle.
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