Welcome to STEM!

Welcome to STEM!

Coding and Creating

About me

My name is Mr. Blanchard.

My family and I live in Pekin. My wife and I have two daughters who are in 4th and 2nd grades.

About Me

Over the summer, we also got a new puppy.

About Me

• This is my 15th year in teaching. I have been fortunate enough to spend all of my time at IMS.

  For the first 10 years, I taught 6th grade on the Mastermind team. 

  This is my 5th year as the STEM teacher.

  
  

About Me

This is my 15th year in teaching. I have been fortunate enough to spend all of my time at IMS.

For the first 10 years, I taught 6th grade on the Mastermind team. 

This is my 5th year as the STEM teacher.

What is STEM Class?

You will be in my class for the first half of the quarter. During the second half, you will be switching to Art.

You will see me each year you are at IMS. 

In 6th grade, we focus on 3D design,

In 7th grade, we focus on building and coding a minicomputer called a micro:bit.

In 8th grade, we will be building robots.

What is STEM?

The next slide is going to be a poll about what you think STEM stands for. Yes, I know that some of the answers may be silly, but answer it honestly.

Poll

What does STEM stand for?

• Sushi, Tomatoes, Eggs, and Meatballs

• Study, Computers, Energy, and Mechanics

• Study things that energize and move

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

What is STEM?

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. So, what kinds of things do you think about when you think of STEM?

Open Ended

What are somethings you think of when you think of STEM?

This Quarter

We are going to be using a site called Scratch. I know some of you might have used it in other classes. 

We are going to start by exploring the site before moving into coding.

There will be times that we will code together as a class as well as times that you will be able to code on your own.

Planning

As you work on building apps, you will need to keep in mind some of the planning that goes into your program.

Part of the planning is about having a method to solve a problem.

One the next slide, we will look at two different ways people solve problems.

About This Class

There will be some projects for you to work on to learn more about the engineering design process.

Although I won’t be assigning “homework,” there will be projects that we will be working on. When we are working on projects, we will be using our live class days to work on them and troubleshoot issues.

About This Class

Independent Days- You will be continuing to work on projects or watching videos with questions to answer. I am hoping to keep these short.

Live Class Days - We will be coming together to learn using YouTube live or other tools.

Goals

Throughout the quarter, I have 2 main goals.

1. Learn the importance of planning out projects.
2. Learn some coding logic.

Open Ended

Feel free to ask me a question and I will answer it.