Math

STEM in 3-5
Classrooms

Traci Via

[e-mail]
http://bit.ly/35stem

What does it look like?

●Teacher led and student driven

●Have a timeline, but let students set the pace

●Evaluate the complexity of the project

●Think outside the box

●Be ready for your students to challenge you

●While there will be guidelines, be flexible

●Do not underestimate your students!

Draw

Draw the four chambers of the heart

Multiple Choice

What is your favorite animal

• cat

• dog

• frog

• lion

The Benefits of STEM-Specifically
Engineering

●Students feel empowered

●Teachers have time to observe students thinking process

●Allows students to be creative in their own way without lots of parameters

●Students greatly enjoy solving a problem or engineering the most “effective”
product

●Engineering is a great way to produce a lesson with cross-curricular effects

○Science and math, even history and ELA

○I once had my students engineer catapults for a “Pumpkin Chunkin” for halloween and we
studied force and motion, weight and the history of the catapult.

How our solar ovens work:

Benefits from an Administrators view:

●Allows students voice and choice in exploring a topic that is interesting to them

●Students learn perseverance, due to the fact that they must work through many
obstacles, successes and failures. This provides a real world experience.

●In Elementary school specifically, our goal is to prepare them for middle and
high school. Engineering can assist in this by helping students with team
building, problem solving and presentation skills.

The Engineering Process

Your mission:

Build a balloon powered car to get from point A to point B, using only the materials
provided.

Guidelines:

●The car MUST be powered by the balloon

●The water bottle must be the body of the car

●You can manipulate your materials in any way you would like, but you will not
be given more

With students, come up with a fun story as to why the car needs to be built. Ie. The
prince must use the materials he is given to get from point A to point B to save his
princess. I also often work in math to these lessons. You can come up with a budget
students need to follow, and they must purchase their materials to work with.

Connected Standards

4.P.1 Explain how various forces affect the motion of an object.

4.P.1.1 Explain how magnets interact with all things made of iron and with other magnets to produce
motion without touching them. 4.P.1.2 Explain how electrically charged objects push or pull on other
electrically charged objects and produce motion.

5.P.1 Understand force, motion and the relationship between them.

5.P.1.1 Explain how factors such as gravity, friction, and change in mass affect the motion of objects.

5.P.1.2 Infer the motion of objects in terms of how far they travel in a certain amount of time and the
direction in which they travel. 5.P.1.3 Illustrate the motion of an object using a graph to show a change in
position over a period of time.

5.P.1.4 Predict the effect of a given force or a change in mass on the motion of an object.

Do not forget math can be incorporated at any time! (Purchasing items with a set amount)

Materials

●Balloon

●8 Pipe Cleaners

●Sheet of cardboard

●Smoothie Straw

●2 Bendy Straws

●Empty Water Bottle

●Binder Clip

●2 Wooden Skewers

●Scissors

●12” of masking tape

Possible Outcomes

Wrap up and discussion of the Project

●Important things to remember during the “building” portion of a lesson

○Do not give too much guidance, this is their time to be creative

○Set a time limit, but still be flexible

○Stick to your rules and material list so that all groups or individuals have the same opportunity

●Important things about the improvement stage

○Sometimes this can fall by the wayside due to it being the last step. This can be for lack of time or
a number of things

○During this stage A LOT of lightbulbs will go off

○Students also tend to grasp the related content for the standards during this step due to the fact
that the actual success or failure of the project proving their assumptions.

Questions or Comments?

Please feel free to reach out to me at any time at

[e-mail]

Twitter: @mrsviaCES