The middle school students were delighted with the opportunity to explore our new high level marble run material in the MakerSpace. Goal #1 has been to create a working marble run. There has been a lot of discussion on momentum and deceleration and angles of the downward slope to keep the marble from jumping. The end goal is to connect the three groups individual runs into one project.
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Students in first and second grades compared and contrasted two similar materials, our Strawbees and our Straw Connectors. They were challenged to build a structure as tall as possible and measure their results. The older students were then challenged to convert their measurements from inches to feet and inches. They enjoyed building, using their measuring tools and recording their results!
Middle school students traveled to Northern Michigan for a three day field trip. Students visited several areas of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park and later conducted experiments with sand and water tension. We spend two nights in a lodge at the Traverse City State Park and enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather when we swam in Lake Michigan and enjoyed games, bonfires, s’mores and other team building activities. The highlight of our trip was when students conducted authentic research and investigated the ecology of the Great Lakes as well as learned a little bit about how to sail schooner Inland Seas. Students followed this activity up by building and testing underwater remote controlled vehicles on board the Utopia at Discovery Pier in Traverse City. Our trip wrapped up with a visit to the local farmers market, putt-putt and a stop at a favorite local diner before returning home. Our middle school students are collaborating with STEM, Social Studies, Language Arts and Art to make a giant tree for their classroom which will tie into many areas of study this year. They helped imagine a design that Mr. Gamache was kind enough to build and bring for the students to begin working on. Students learned how to make their own paper mache paste and are learning the best techniques to using the medium. More to come as the project progresses... The kindergarten students worked in small groups with various materials to create chain reactions and a domino effect. They used dominoes, cardboard blocks and boxes to try to get each to topple over. It was a great hands on trial and error activity.
Using Chromebooks, the first graders worked in small groups to create their first stop motion animation movies. They began with a story, created a set, took countless pictures and finally added their audio. We got to use a new tool and app that was a little challenging, but it sure was fun!
The older students at E.C.A. have been campaigning for a Gaga Ball pit ever since returning from camp. Today, they started researching what is needed to build such a thing here at E.C.A. Everyone simultaneously collaborated on a Google Slides document and they were greeted with the best surprise - an opportunity to play gaga ball! We're looking forward to the next step in this project. First grade is entering their second week of their animation project. Students put on some finishing touches to their backdrops and started filming this week. We are using a new stop motion animation app on the chromebooks that has been a little tricky to master, but so far, the first graders are handling the challenge like champs!
First grade students began researching stop motion animation this week. They broke into groups and started creating a story with a beginning, middle and end and a few characters. Today, they got their background boards so they could begin creating their story background. Loved the intense involvement. They are super excited about this project!
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AuthorI'm Mrs. G - and we're doing great things in the ECA STEM program this year! Categories
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February 2018
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