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black history month stem activities

3 Black History Month STEM Activities [ep.58]

3 Black History Month STEM Activities [ep.58]

black history month stem activities

Check out the full episode on 3 Black History Month STEM Activities:  

 

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Episode Summary

In honor of February being Black History Month, in today’s episode, I’m sharing three STEM activities that you can do with your students to celebrate this time. Of course, these are activities that you can do all year long to help students learn about important people that have made an impact on history and impact in the present. Whether you’re a STEM teacher or a classroom teacher, these activities are great for sparking creativity in your students.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • 3 Black History Month STEM activities
  • An overview of the resources and materials needed to implement each activity
  • Tips for implementing each activity in your classroom

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

February is known as Black History Month and today I’m going to be sharing with you three STEM activities that you can do with your students to celebrate this time. Of course, these are activities that you can do all year long to help students learn about important people that have made an impact on history and impact in the present. So let’s jump in.


Naomi Meredith  00:53

Before we jump into these fun STEM activities, a couple quick announcements for you to keep your eye out for. First of all, if you are loving this podcast, I appreciate all of the DMS that you keep sending me so keep sending them my way. But also share out loud by writing a review. This will not only help me know if this podcast is making an impact for you, but also help other teachers to find this podcast as they’re browsing and if it’s a good fit for them. So if you’re on Apple podcasts or if you’re not, login and write a quick review. I would love to read those out loud on the show and to get your voices be heard. Also, if you missed out on the K through two STEM planning workshop, that is okay. If you weren’t able to attend live, this is also available as a recording. So the whole session was recorded and together we created a whole cohesive unit where we created a mini project, planned out STEM stations, and assembled stories that would work well in your classroom. So you can jump on in! The link will be in the show notes or you can also jump on in on that workshop at Naomimeredith.com/primaryworkshop. Also, when thinking about the community of us in this elementary STEM teacher world, I am hosting an upcoming monthly book club for you to jump in on. So the coolest part I think is we’ll be able to meet together monthly and chat throughout the month about STEM and innovation as a community. Of course, there will be a book that we’ll be reading together and some fun little freebies and things along the way. So jump in on the waitlist so you don’t miss that when it launches because that’s coming up really soon, actually just in time for spring. So again, that’ll be linked in the show notes. Or you can find that at Naomimeredith.com/bookclubwaitlist. So if you just head to my website, you can find all this stuff. But super fun things coming your way when it comes to the elementary STEM community. 


Naomi Meredith  02:54

A lot of you might see on my Instagram, but my Teacher Honey and I love to travel. This has been something in our relationship from the beginning. And we travel all the time, especially during the holidays, that’s something that we enjoy to do, instead of giving each other’s gifts. In December of 2019, we actually traveled to Washington, DC, where they have all the national monuments and all of these amazing museums that you can go into. Most of them are free, which is pretty awesome. But our favorite museum, by far was the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I think it is a fairly new museum. But it was absolutely beautiful and inspiring. We spent practically all day there. We just kept saying how we wish that we had a museum like this where we live in Colorado. So maybe in the future that will happen. But we also wish that this was a museum and an experience that every single state had, and that all students were able to attend because it was just really cool. Learning about American history through this lens and we wish that this was the lens that we were taught in. It was just very impactful for us, and just was so amazing. We just learned a whole bunch. Of course we couldn’t get to everything, even with the amount of time that we were there. So definitely a museum, we definitely want to go back to if we’re in Washington, DC, again, and I highly, highly, highly recommend going. So if you have to wait in line, wait in line, it is worth your time. We really loved it. So I think you’re really going to enjoy these black history month activities that you can use in your STEM classroom. Or even if you’re a classroom teacher, you can implement them, but they’re definitely a spark for creativity. So let these inspire you where you can think of even more activities that you can integrate in your classroom. 


Naomi Meredith  04:56

The first one is inventor robot coding. During, and when I was getting my master’s in STEM leadership, there was a whole bunch of assignments. We were talking about how students need to see role models who are like them, and also unlike them to help inspire them to be things that they never thought imaginable. So there’s a huge lack of this I have found in my research when it comes to elementary STEM. So this is a project I have in the works, something on my vision board, to help bring people in STEM to life for children. A really good book to spark this, there are so many more out there, but one that I really love is Have You Thanked an Inventor Today? by Patrice McClaren, and she actually has a few other books in her series. This one is super cool, because it is illustrative but it also talks about inventors from history and in the modern day of inventions that we use in our daily lives, but you might not always know who invented them. So this one is super fun and super engaging. It has some great conversations. And of course, read this book out loud to your class. If you want to get your hands on the book even faster, it is a great price if you get the Kindle version. One hack that I like to do with ebooks is I will screen record myself reading the book for my students and I have my little dog Fredrick in my lap, and I’ll talk to him or whatever. I don’t post these on my YouTube channel. This is just for classroom use only. But it’s a great way where if you’re going to read the book over and over again, it is technically you’re still reading the book, but then it gives you a little leeway when kids are coming in and all the behaviors stuff. So highly recommend doing that. But this is an awesome book. And so how you can integrate this in your classroom is you can have pictures of the inventors, pictures of the invention they invented, and students have to code and match the inventor to the invention. So if you don’t feel like making this, I have this as a forever freebie in my TPT shop. So definitely go and check that out. It connects to the book. And then you can even have students create their own cards if you’re learning about other people throughout the school year. And you can keep adding to that robot collection. So really fun way to integrate that robotics in your classroom into learn about people who have been impactful in their daily lives. So just a lot of fun things that you can do in relation to this book, or other books when it comes to important inventors in black history. 


Naomi Meredith  07:28

The next activity that you can do in your classroom to help celebrate Black History Month is having an interactive bulletin board with black women in STEM. So again, learning about people who have been impactful in modern day and in the past. But I have again, another forever freebie for you, where I’ve done a lot of research about these amazing women. And it includes a short little bio about the person just a little bit about their background to get to the position that they have, or had in STEM, a picture of the person. And then there’s a matching card where there are video links, and maybe a website about them, maybe other little things to help you learn more about that person. And you can create an interactive experience for the students. A couple of ways that you could do this in your classroom is of course you can print them out, hang them up on your wall, and then this could be a STEM station that your students traveled to, to learn more about these amazing women. Another way that you could do this is you could have this displayed on your projector or your TV and your classroom. And you can talk about a new person every day, and learn about the cool things that they have done. When I was creating these cards I even found about jobs and people I had never heard about which was so much fun for me. And again, something that is definitely needed in the classroom at the elementary level. So that’s why again, these are free for you to use to help you get started with those conversations. And of course, I made them cute for you don’t get me wrong, they’re very cute. So definitely check those out, add them to your collections of things for this month. 


Naomi Meredith  09:08

And finally, the third way that you can celebrate Black History Month when it comes to STEM activities is having green screen talking heads. I talked about this activity a bit in Episode 37. So go back and take a listen. This is a green screen of variation when it comes to having that talking head project. You probably know what I’m talking about where you have students color and draw the body of a person that they researched about. Then they cut out a hole for their head and they hold it up to them and they pretend they’re that person. I am not great at drawing. I wish I was. Some of my siblings are actually really great at this, mine are not the best. It’s just not a skill I have developed yet. But a way you can have this variation is students can reasearch about important people in black history. Some great resources for this is Epic Books, of course, love me some Epic Books, and even BrainPOP has some really cool videos that you can use with your students as well as a resource. You can have them research about these people, and then when you go to the green screen recording part, students will wear a solid shirt that matches the background they’re recording in front of. So let’s say you are having a green screen, you have matching green shirts. And this will actually make the students body disappear. So in the green screen video, their head is actually floating. I have an example of this, I created a video about Mae Jemison, who was her famous astronaut and black history for NASA. I have the video linked in the show notes, check it out, it was my first go around. So I didn’t edit out the end. So my head kind of floats off the screen at the end, and the kids got a little bit scared and started screaming. But overall, the content is great. So they can create a script to talk about and just be like this person and represent them and all the things that they learned about and the cool things that they had made an impact in the world and in STEM history for the background. So you have your head that’s floating, you can find pictures of those people. And then you could just have make sure you move the students head in front of that image on the screen, do a little configuration, and then it works out it’s super fun in a cool way to have an interactive experience. You could save all these videos, create QR codes for all of them, and have an interactive museum that students can travel through. This would be be even cool if you had this in the hallways. And then classes came through throughout the month or multiple months. And they travel through this interactive in house museum field trip. So that’s a cool way to get kids moving, especially during the cold winter months we have to get a little bit creative. So that’d be a really cool way for students to learn about other people impactful in history, see their peers who are telling them about it. And it could just be really collaborative that way. If you need a template when it comes to graphic organizer to organizing all their thoughts, I have a template for you. It’s just about STEM inventors in general so it can be reused for a lot of different purposes. But I have a little template for you that can help guide the research for this fun green screen project. As a recap, here are three Black History Month STEM activities that you can use in your classroom. First is the inventor robot coding. Next are the black woman and STEM interactive bulletin board or you can make this digital and finally the green screen Talking Heads. Of course, as I said, Don’t feel like you have to be limited to the month of February. These are just a jumping off point to help your students learn more about black history through the lens of STEM. But definitely again dive in deeper and use this as a way to spark those conversations and help them learn of how people who have made big impacts in their lives and in our world. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore or send me an email to elementary STEM Coach podcast@gmail.com. Also, make sure to check out my website Naomi meredith.com. To see all the show notes from today’s episode. Again, check out my K through five STEM resources. Any questions you have needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I’ll talk to you soon.

black history month stem activities

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

GOOD NIGHT OPPY

The Mars Rover Project and ‘GOOD NIGHT OPPY’ with NASA Engineer Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt [ep.57]

The Mars Rover Project and ‘GOOD NIGHT OPPY’ with NASA Engineer Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt [ep.57]

GOOD NIGHT OPPY

Check out the full episode on The Mars Rover Project and ‘GOOD NIGHT OPPY’ with NASA Engineer Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

Today’s episode is special because I had the opportunity to collaborate with Wonder Workshop, the robotics company, and EdWeb to interview Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt, a current flight director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was one of the featured team members in Amazon Prime’s GOOD NIGHT OPPY and got to work with space rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

This episode was a live webinar; the video replay is available and linked in the show notes. At the end of the conversation with Bekah, the moderator for this webinar, Bryan Miller, the Senior Director of Global Strategic Outreach at Wonder Workshop and was a guest on the show last year, asks Bekah some great questions to close out the webinar.

I learned so much in this interview. I am so grateful for this opportunity and so excited to be able to share this with you today. I know you’re definitely going to enjoy it.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • About Bekah’s role at NASA
  • Bekah’s experience working on the rovers
  • Behind the scenes insight into The Mars Rover Project and GOOD NIGHT OPPY

Meet Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt:

GOOD NIGHT OPPY

Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt grew up in the small town of Fredericksburg in the heart of Texas. From an early age, she would lay on a blanket gazing at the dark night skies wondering if she was alone. Her interest was piqued in middle school after visiting McDonald Observatory in West Texas and watching Opportunity and Spirit land on Mars. She didn’t let the lack of females in her tech-oriented high school classes deter her passion, and she applied to the Aerospace Engineering department at the University of Texas (UT). While at UT, she had internships at Johnson Space Center, SpaceX, and the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). Now, as Flight Director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she applies her sense of curiosity and her problem-solving skills to the tasks at hand daily and has many stories about Oppy and Spirit’s adventures to share with future space explorers and engineers.

Connect with Bekah:

Meet Bryan Miller:

GOOD NIGHT OPPY

Bryan Miller is the Sr. Director of Global Strategic Outreach at Wonder Workshop where he works with schools and districts around the world to help implement coding and robotics into their curriculum using the award-winning robot Dash. He is a former teacher and school administrator and is an international keynote presenter.

 

Connect with Bryan: 

More About GOOD NIGHT OPPY:

This documentary tells the inspirational true story of Opportunity, a rover that was sent to Mars for a 90-day mission but ended up surviving for 15 years. The film follows Opportunity’s groundbreaking journey on Mars and the remarkable bond forged between a robot and her humans millions of miles away. Now Streaming on Prime Video.

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

This episode is a longer one, but a special one. I had the opportunity to collaborate with Wonder Workshop, the robotics company, and EdWeb to interview Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt, a current flight director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She was one of the featured team members in Amazon Prime’s GOOD NIGHT OPPY and got to work with space rovers Spirit and Opportunity. This episode was filmed live, it was a live webinar. So if I mess up, forgive me, I didn’t get any redos on this one. You’ll also hear at the end of the conversation I have with Bekah, the moderator for this webinar, Bryan Miller, the Senior Director of Global Strategic Outreach at Wonder Workshop. He also was a guest on this podcast and his episode was awesome. So make sure to go back and give it a listen after this episode. In the video version of this conversation, he gives an awesome introduction at the very beginning, and also encourages you to check out the Wonder League Robotics Competition, which I also highly recommend. This episode you can actually listen to with your family or students, as well as watch the documentary GOOD NIGHT OPPY, which we referenced throughout the conversation. Even check out the video replay of the interview too. You could show this to your students because it’s a super awesome opportunity even if you weren’t there live. This will all be linked in the show notes so you know where to get all this information. I learned so much in this interview. I am so grateful for this opportunity and so excited to be able to share this with you today. I know you’re definitely going to enjoy it. 


Naomi Meredith  02:18

Well, thank you, Bryan, for that awesome introduction. You were an excellent emcee. But I don’t expect anything less. Thank you Bekah so much for being here today. I know that I was so excited for today. I even wore one of my NASA sweatshirts in honor of you and have some space earrings as well. So very excited. I know all the kids and schools out there are probably equally as excited. It’s not very often where you can hear from someone who works at NASA. So this is a really big moment for a lot of students out there and shout out to my school in Colorado, and then Cimarron in Colorado as well. But thank you again for being here. So if you wouldn’t mind, we got a cool introduction about you. But I want to hear a little bit more about what your role is at NASA, and what is the coolest part about your job?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  03:14

Thanks, Naomi. Thank you for having me. I really look forward to our conversation today. So yes, what I do at NASA. So I actually I started off at NASA back in 2013. I started working on the Spirit and Opportunity mission, so Opportunity was my first rover there. I jumped right into mission operations. That’s what we call it. And if you can imagine this, imagine a room where there are many desks. At each desk, there’s a person that’s responsible for a part of creating the rover sequences that day. So we get all the data down for the Mars vehicle through the Deep Space Network. It’s a series of antennas placed around the earth. All the data comes in, we see it, we analyze the data, we look at the images, and then we decide based on that what we want to do that day with the rover. And in the room, half the room is scientists, half the room are engineers. The scientists are saying, “Hey, we really want to go over to that rock or go down that steep hill because that stuff’s really interesting.” And the engineers, which is what I do, we have to make sure to keep the rover healthy and safe. So we try and do what the science team wants to do. But a lot of times we have to say I can’t do that. But we can do this instead. And so once we’ve decided on what we want to do that day, I am responsible for coming up with a part of the commands that we send to the rover along with other people in the room. We put those commands together to come up with the recipe of what the rover should do that day. Now we send it up to the rover and let her execute that while we sleep. And then we come in the next day and she sends down all the data and we repeat the process.


Naomi Meredith  05:02

That sounds like there’s a ton of collaboration in your job, which is super important for all you kids out there. But it sounds like there’s a lot of high energy to with your job as well. You have all of these different roles, and I can see by the excitement in your face that it’s a very exciting job. I’m sure, there’s a lot of things that happen that you don’t expect, which we might get into in a little bit. So for the kids out there who don’t know what a space rover is, it’s a little bit different than the robots they might have in their classroom. So they might have a Dash robot in their classroom. But what exactly is a space rover? And then tell us a little bit more about Spirit and Opportunity, the little twins? And what makes them so special.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  05:45

Yeah, sure. So when we develop robots to send to other planets, it’s really important that we try and make them as human life is possible. And that’s because as humans, and as there are scientists out there, special scientists called geologists and geologists look at rocks and try and answer questions about the planet. So we have Martian geologists. And we want to make the rovers as human like as possible, so we can literally get down and look with a little microscope at what the rocks were like a human would do or us. So we need to use hands, we need to be able to rover, like move around on the planet, we need to be able to see. So the robots look a lot like people, we actually have two cameras, like a pair of cameras for all the cameras that we have on the vehicle, there’s two of them. And what that allows us to do much like our eyes as human beings, we use to to have depth perception. So we know how far away a rock is, that’s really important. We have an arm to be able to like I was saying, look at things or pick things up or scoop things. And we also have six wheels, like our legs that let us rove around on the planet. So that’s why they’re special. They act a lot like humans, because we need a human like thing to be on these planets to help us investigate and answer the questions that we have. And what makes Spirit and Opportunity so special. So history of rovers. So we sent a Martian rover Sojourner, and that was our first Martian rover back in the 90s. And Sojourner was about the shape of a microwave oven. And it was really a technology demonstration to figure out, can we send something that can rove around on the planet? And we were able to answer that question. Once we did that, we said, “Okay, now we know we can rove a rover on Mars. So let’s make them bigger and let’s build two of them for redundancy.” So redundancy means if one fails, we have a backup. So it’s like a backup plan. So we sent two rovers, two twins Spirit and Opportunity. So we had a backup plan in case one of them didn’t work. They both ended up working. So it was awesome, because we had two rovers on two  different parts of the planet, answering different questions. But Spirit and Opportunity’s roles were really to answer the question, did drinkable water ever exist on Mars? That was because at the time our big question was did life ever exist on Mars, and at the time, we were trying to follow the water, follow the water in the solar system, because as we humans, we need water to survive. In fact, life needs water to survive ,plants, different things you can think about if things are alive, they need water. So we were searching the solar system for water. And that’s what Spirit and Opportunity were trying to do was follow the water. Then the next rover mission we built was Curiosity. Curiosity was trying to answer was that water habitable? Was the Martian environment ever habitable? Meaning could life have existed on Mars? And we’re trying to answer that question. And Curiosity was able to answer that question, too. And then the final rover that we’re at today, it’s not the final one, but it’s our current rover. The latest one is Perseverance. That’s actually the mission I work on today. And Perseverance is actually trying to answer did life ever exist on Mars? Ancient life, so we are cashing samples and tubes, and I can talk more about what our mission does. But each rover has a mission, a goal, and something that we’re trying to get to and they all are a bit different, really trying to march towards answering the question, did life ever exist on Mars?


Naomi Meredith  09:37

Well, that’s super cool, too. Because there’s, I’m sure you guys are just hearing and you can see all of this in the movie GOOD NIGHT OPPY, and how the rovers work and how they interact. So there’s just a great depiction of that to really visualize what you’re talking about. But I could see why you would be really excited because there’s just so much going on and all these different challenges and tasks and it was really exciting to that the twins, Spirit and Opportunity were beyond successful. They were successful, but then they just kept going and going and going for years, which is you saw them when you were in middle school, and then you had the chance to work with Opportunity. So amazing to really live out your childhood dream. And not a lot of people can say they did that. But that’s so amazing that you got to actually work with Opportunity. What surprised you the most when you were working with her? Is she a girl?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  10:32

Yes, she is a girl. Yeah. So I mean, you hit on it, it’s the opportunity. Both Spirit and Opportunity were designed to only last 90 days on the surface. And we thought they were going to only last 90 days because of the amount of dust that we had observed when Sojourner went to Mars. But we had our new best friend, these little dust devils come by and clean off the solar panels. So they were actually able to last longer, and they lasted a lot longer. So Opportunity was only designed for a 90 day mission, and she lasted almost 15 years on Mars. So for me, I think what surprised me, the biggest is number one, like holy cow. In eighth grade, Spirit and Opportunity are what inspired me to go into space, I never thought I was gonna get to work on them. They were only supposed to last 90 days. So to get to work on Opportunity was definitely a dream come true. So I think that was probably it. Maybe that’s like a cop out answer. But that’s probably the thing I was most surprised by. But another thing I learned that I was also surprised by is as the rovers age, there are more problems to solve. And you might first thing like, “Oh, the rovers are aging, they’re problems. That’s a bad thing.” But for an engineer, what surprised me the most is like every time we had a problem to solve, every time we got data down and the rover didn’t quite do what we wanted her to do, I got really excited, which was a surprising reaction for me. But I realized that I’m an engineer, I like to solve problems. I like to figure out. That’s how I work. When everything goes well all the time, it’s kind of a boring job for an engineer because we don’t have any problems to solve. So I think that was another surprising thing for me was the excitement I felt when there was a problem to solve.


Naomi Meredith  12:27

Okay, you hear that kids, problems are a good thing. And Bekah has an excellent growth mindset. This is a life skill right here. Look at you! You are a great example for all the kids watching out there. So that is so good. So with your mission currently, you said you’re working on Perseverance. So what are the things that Perseverance is working on? Is that similar to Opportunity? Or are there some different challenges as well?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  12:55

Yes, Perseverance. So Perseverance, for the first time now, actually has three mission goals. So you know, in the past, we’ve really just aimed for one, but NASA said, “You know what, y’all are doing great with meeting your mission objectives, let’s just throw three in there this time, why not?” So we have three objectives. Number one, is to try and find ancient life on Mars. So this would be really old past life, not necessarily human, or like Alien life, but microbial life. So like plant based simple life. So we’re looking for that. The second goal is to cash samples on Mars to bring them back for a future mission. So we are going in and coring the surface of Mars, all different kinds of rocks and different things that we see. And we’re putting those in test tubes, we’re sealing them up, we’re dropping them on the surface. And then Mars sample return, the next Mars mission is already underway, planning out how we’re going to go back to Mars, capture those samples and bring them back to Earth, which is huge. This will be the first time we’ve ever had like an actual Martian sample in our hands to analyze, which when we actually have things here, we can analyze, we have a lot more instrumentation, a lot more that we can do with those samples instead of what we’re limited to on the rover. So that’s going to be a big thing to answer the question, did life ever exist on Mars. And the third goal is to prepare for humans. In fact, humans like all of you out there, because if you look at the timeline of when we’re trying to send astronauts to Mars, your generation, everyone in middle school and high school right now and even elementary school are the perfect age for the first humans to be on Mars. So we have some instrumentation onboard to to try and create oxygen. So pulling the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And for those of you who’ve learned this in science class, carbon dioxide is C O two. We’ll be splitting apart the carbon and oxygen molecules, where you’re just left with oxygen. And oxygen is really important for humans because we use it to breathe. But we also use it, if we combine a hydrogen molecule on there, we can have water. So oxygen is really important. That’s an example of one of the instruments we’re using to help us prepare for humans on Mars.


Naomi Meredith  15:23

That’s super amazing. And I love how you guys just added on more challenges and see how it goes. How long has she been up there already? 


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  15:33

Yeah, so she has been up there officially, as of like, a few days ago, one Martian year, which is about two Earth years. So on February 18 2023, coming up in about a month, she will have been up there for two Earth years, which is awesome.


Naomi Meredith  15:52

Yeah, that so good. So some of you might have even watched the launch of when she got sent up there, because that wasn’t very long ago. So some of you might even know when that happened. Thinking about all the tests that these rovers do, do you have to do any testing here on earth to make sure that they’re working correctly? And how do you test them? Because you’re not on Mars, so how do you know that they actually are going to do what they’re supposed to do when they’re far away from you, you don’t have anybody you can send to go fix the rover if they have to solve it themselves. So how do you test what they do here on Earth?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  16:30

Naomi, that’s a great question. I’m really glad you asked it, we actually build another version of the rover. So with Spirit and Opportunity, we had a third rover, and with Perseverance, we have a second rover. And that’s the earth version of the rovers. So if you saw one, which I have a picture of somewhere, but you can also Google it, we have, I mean, it looks exactly like Perseverance on Earth. And we have what we call the Mars yard at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where it looks a lot like Mars. And so if we’re ever in a situation where it’s the first time we’re doing something, or we’re in an anomaly situation, not like a problematic situation, we will recreate what’s going on on Mars on Earth. And we’ll have the rover on the ready. And anything that we’re about to send to Mars, we’ll do it on the earth testbed first on the rover on earth, to make sure that what we’re about to send to Mars is actually going to work. So we do that all the time. The testbed is like constantly active, testing out different things. But we also make sure we build the rovers, knowing that we can’t repair something. So for example, if you notice on the rovers, we don’t have rubber tires on the wheels. One reason for that is, number one, it’s really cold on Mars. So when rubber gets really cold, it can break. And if we went over a rock, and we had a flat tire, there’s no way we can do anything about it. So they’re made of metal, they literally just rove on metal wheels. And so we think through these things, and we build the rovers in a way, knowing that we won’t be able to fix anything. So we try and make them really robust.


Naomi Meredith  18:17

So in the movie, they showed, I wonder if it was that same play yard, but Spirit got stuck up there and you put cake flour on the test to see how spirit could get unstuck. So you just see all of these scientists, just like covered in flour and testing out the rover. So definitely check that out. Because it’s, I mean, you guys figured it out, which is amazing. 


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  18:44

Yeah, that’s exactly right. We took really close up pictures of the material that was under Spirit, because on Mars, not everywhere, is that cake flour material. Sometimes were on like pretty rocky terrain, or sandy terrain. But this was like really fine stuff that we were in. And that’s why we got stuck. So we took really close up pictures. So we could recreate that material in the testbed, but you’re exactly right. In the movie you get to see the testbed. Now the testbed looks a bit different, cuz we have bigger rovers in there. But it’s basically the same idea. But it’s really fun when you have problems like that to like, try and recreate them on Earth is a lot of fun.


Naomi Meredith  19:25

But would you say every day is pretty consistent for you. So what would be a typical day? You’re at the office, you’re working together as a team, you have a rover up in space. What are most days like and then do the times actually change as to when you can explore the data?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  19:45

Yeah, great question. So no, not every day is typical. That’s one of the things that I really like about my job is every time we drive someplace new, and sometimes we’re in the same place for a few days, and maybe those days are pretty typical. But anytime we do arrive to a new location. It’s like a whole new mission, because we don’t know what’s around the corner. That’s why we’re exploring. We don’t know what we’re going to find. We’re very reactive, you know, we can’t always plan for everything. But a typical day as a mission operator would be to come into work. We have no idea what we’re about to see, data hits the ground. So I kind of talked about this earlier, but did its ground, we analyze it. And that analyzing part sometimes takes a while because there are conversations that need to be had with the science team. And there’s a lot of back and forth, you kind of see that in the movie to the engineers, and the scientists are always like, you know, having fun conversations with each other. But that is a pretty typical day. And then once we have, we’re on a time budget, like we have to radiate the commands to the Mars Rover at a certain time, because that’s the only time she’ll be listening for our commands. We have a window, we have to make that window. So a lot of times Steve Squyres in the movie, or the equivalent on Perseverance, our lead scientist has to kind of put their foot down and say, “Okay, this has been great conversations. But this is what we’re doing today.” Because we don’t have time to have any more banter or conversation. And we need we need that sometimes. We need someone to just step in and make a decision. So that is a pretty typical day. And then Naomi, you asked me another part to that question, and I forgot. 


Naomi Meredith  21:28

So your typical day and then the timezone. Is the time on Mars on the same timezone as us on Earth? Or does that change things as well?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  21:40

That’s exactly what it was. So no, the Martian day is about 24 hours and 40 minutes. So it’s pretty close to an Earth Day, it’s only 40 minutes off. But that 40 minutes really is hard for human beings. Because let’s say, if we’re on Mars time, which we are for a good amount of the beginning of the mission, and let’s say we come in to work at 8am. Then the next day, we come into work at 840. Then the next day, we come into work at 920, then 10am. And it shifts by 40 minutes every day, because we’re on the rovers time and we radiate the commands up to the rover. Her day starts at the same time on Mars every day. So that that can be really hard on a human being, especially when it’s like okay, now we come in at midnight, and then 1240 and then 1:20am. And especially when you have little kids like I did with Perseverance when we started mission operations. You know my kids expected me to be there at certain time, I had a little infant, so I’m waking up at night with her. And then I had an infant on Earth and an infant on Mars, and managing all of that got a little crazy. And I’m sure teachers out there that are parents can kind of understand what I’m saying. But yeah, it is. It was a very interesting time in my life trying to keep up with the Martian time being on Mars time.


Naomi Meredith  23:07

Yeah, that’s not a timezone you typically see when you’re in the airport, when they say it’s this time in Denver, this time in New York, they don’t typically have it’s this time in Mars, but maybe they should. So for kids out there, they’re probably really pumped and excited, and you’re inspiring a ton of kids and adults. For any students who want to get into a job like yours, or into STEM or NASA, what advice do you have for them? There’s just so many opportunities out there, there’s jobs out there that don’t even exist yet. You’re like you said, living out your dream. So what advice do you have for kids who want to be like you?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  23:48

Okay, great. So I’m glad you asked this question. First, if you want to work at NASA, let’s just say that’s your goal. First, I would sit down and ponder, do you want to do the science side of things? Or do you want to do the engineering side of things? And to help you answer that, that would be questions like, for the science that I want, and maybe you learned about this in your class, but forming a hypothesis, asking a question, did life ever exist on Mars? Does life exist in the solar system today? Those kinds of questions and looking at data, images and pictures, and trying to answer that question, if that really inspires you and like gels with you, then maybe you want to be a scientist. Or maybe you want to solve problems. You want to take the problems that the scientists or the goals that they’re trying to reach and build something that will help them achieve and get that answer. So maybe you like putting things together or taking things apart and looking in the innards of like electronics or something or maybe you want to try and something happens with your computer, your iPad or whatever it is, your phone and you want to like solve that problem. So those are kind of two different routes you could take to work at NASA. There are actually many, many more, but those are two general ones. And then what I would encourage is for you to pay attention in math and science classes, really anything STEM related. And it’s okay, if you’re not good or not great at math and science yet. There are people out there that can help. And I think for me, that was the biggest lesson I learned really not till college, I wish I had learned it earlier, ask for help. It’s okay to ask for help. I was not very good at math, actually. And people always said, “You got to be good at math and science to be an engineer.” That’s not true. I wasn’t very good at that, I got a tutor. And once I got a tutor, and they sat down with me for a whole year and took me step by step, I had to relearn a lot of stuff. It all of a sudden made sense to me. And then I was able to like keep up with my homework and do well on tests. But it’s okay to ask for help. So I think that’s another thing. Also, doing things like building robots, or getting into a robotics club or something like that can also really help you try and understand how math and science apply to real world problems like building robots and stuff. So I think all of those things are really helpful to line your pathway to get to NASA.


Naomi Meredith  26:28

I think that’s a really, really good advice. And I appreciate your vulnerability. And I love how you also use the word yet. It takes baby steps to get to where you’re at, and all the things that you’ve done when you’re young, and you’ve made mistakes. And here you are today, and you’re still growing as a person. So there’s always new challenges out there. So that is excellent advice for any kids who want to get into NASA or even any STEM related jobs out there. So with what you’re allowed to talk about, because we know NASA is a very confidential place, but what you’re allowed to talk about, is there any cool things that you guys are working on or a project? You talked about Perseverance, but anything going on, that we should keep our eyes and ears out for?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  27:14

For sure. Yes. So a couple of things, the current rover that we have, so Curiosity, still roaming the planet doing fantastic science. And then we also have Perseverance, the most current one, Perseverance took a little buddy with her, a helicopter named Ingenuity. So keep your eye out for Ingenuity, which is still going on. Ingenuity was only supposed to last five flights, the little helicopter, but she is still going on almost two years of the planet. So that’s huge. Keep your eye and your eye out for Ingenuity and Perseverance findings on Mars. That’s a really, it’s really exciting right now what we’re seeing on Mars, and then yeah, keep your eye out for Mars sample return. That’s our next mission. We’re in the process of designing the mission right now. So it’s in the very, very early stages. But it’s, it’s really exciting. And it’s going to be probably the mission leading up to humans on Mars. So all of those things, if you think you want to be an astronaut someday, that’s also a really fun project to follow, because we’re just getting one step closer to that to


Naomi Meredith  28:20

Super awesome. Well, we will keep checking that out. Okay, so now, those are the questions from me. But we have a ton of questions from our audience out there. And they are very curious and want to hear what you have to say about these. So I’m going to try to put them in order, but they might not make sense in the order I say them. But we’re going to do this together. So from Steve Kedi, how much from the original team, so I’m assuming the original team from Spirit and Opportunity, still work at NASA?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  28:56

Yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, so a lot of them have retired. But pretty recently, I would say they have started to retire. But Jennifer Trosper is in the movie a lot and she still works at NASA. I would say probably, I mean, it’s hard to put a number on it. But I would say probably 75% of people still work at NASA. I think what what we find at JPL and NASA is people tend to stick around. I know there are careers out there where people jump from job to job a lot, which there’s nothing wrong with that either. And staying in a position for about five years is, you know, typical, but at JPL and NASA people stay around for a really long time. So you’ll see that a lot. And I would say yeah, probably like 75% of the crew, the original crew is still at JPL.


Naomi Meredith  29:44

Awesome. That’s that’s really good stats. Wow, it’s pretty amazing. Okay, so this next one is from Samina and I apologize if I say your name wrong. And their question was, what did it feel like to be able to see Mars? So when you’re at NASA, and what did it feel like for you, when you actually could see Mars through those photographs and videos?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  30:06

Oh my gosh, yeah, that, especially when I first started working there, that was like, a giddy moment for me when those images would come down. And I was the first person to see these images, or our team was, it was a feeling unlike anything I can really describe. And also like coming into work and trying to reorient my brain from Earth, and then to Mars and like, think about all the things I needed to do when I get to work, which was all on another planet. Yeah, you kind of have to pinch yourself sometimes. But yeah, the feeling is incredible.


Naomi Meredith  30:42

I’m sure. I mean, it’s uncharted territory. And you said Mars is really big. So there’s a lot of places that we haven’t seen yet. So that’s so exciting. All right, this one is kind of similar to a lot of the questions. So do you have to speak a different language to be an astronaut? So that’s by Larry.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  31:03

Yeah, good question. Um, there are some. So there are Earth languages and then there are robot languages. So let me answer the robotic question first. So with the rovers, we actually speak to them in a different language we speak to them in what we call binary, and binary is really just a series of zeros and ones. And we have computer programs that translate binary, the language we speak to them to English. And we do talk to like we start typing in English. Even for all the instruments that are around the globe, we use English, but we have programs that were written by people to help us translate from English into binary. So the rover speaking binary, if that that’s one question. But to be an astronaut, there or like to be in the International Space Station, if there are astronauts that are working heavily with the Russian cosmonauts, or the European Space Agency, there are sometimes reasons to speak other languages, but going through the NASA or the astronaut program, they’ll tell you and train you appropriately. 


Naomi Meredith  32:14

That’s super cool. I always tell my students that coding is learning coding languages, you’re learning languages, there’s a lot of opportunities to learn a language.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  32:25

In college, we’re required to take a foreign language at the University of Texas. But in engineering, computer programming counted as our foreign language. So we didn’t have to take another foreign language. It was our foreign language.


Naomi Meredith  32:39

And it’s probably one you wanted to learn anyway. All right, this one is this is actually a really good question, because the rovers are just hanging up out there. So is it possible for the rover batteries to die? And if so what happens? And that’s from Nicole King.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  32:59

Yeah. So, Nicole, so if you think about your phone, your phone battery needs to get charged, right? So when you say die, we keep a really close eye on the batteries to make sure they don’t go all the way to dead. But even if they did, we have ways to charge them. So in Spirit and Opportunity we had solar panels, so the sun would charge them. But as you saw, or might seen in movie, when we have dust storms, or reasons why we can’t get sun on the solar panels, there is no way to charge the battery. And yes, batteries will die. And that’s bad day for the rover. But they do you know, eventually, sometimes you might find with your phone or your parents phone or whatever. Eventually, over time, that battery isn’t able to hold a charge anymore. The battery itself dies and there’s no way to recharge it. And that is what we have found at least with Opportunity and that ends up being one of the reasons one of the ways the rovers could stop communicating with us when the battery dies. And the batteries eventually will. They are lithium ion batteries. They’re not perfect. They’re really great. But um, yeah, they will run out of charge someday.


Naomi Meredith  34:10

That’s pretty amazing Spirit and Opportunity. Their batteries lasted a really, really long time to hang out up there on Mars for a long, long time. So they have really good batteries. Yeah, yeah, along with that, since they use the sun to recharge is there any other type of weather on Mars other than dust storms? So that’s by Lisa white.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  34:33

Great question. So there isn’t really rain, at least not where the rovers are because we don’t have water moisture in the air. I’m saying really because at the poles is a different story. Dust storms are a big thing. Wind is a big thing. But other than that, it’s usually just pretty sunny because we don’t really have clouds or the Martian atmosphere is only one percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s a very, very thin atmosphere. So there’s not a lot of opportunity for there to be more weather than than wind storms and dust storms.


Naomi Meredith  35:10

Very different. But they’re figuring that out for us to get up there. Alright, so this one is from Steve Keti. And this he asked, Do you still play wake up music? So in the movie, if you guys haven’t seen it, the rovers have a song, a wake up song every day. And I’m going to add on to that. Do you have a favorite wake up song?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  35:32

Great. So we do still play wake up songs every morning. Not on Opportunity, unfortunately anymore, but because she’s passed away. But on Perseverance we play a wake up song every morning to wake the team up. And in the role that I was in on Perseverance, as a flight director, I was able to pick wake up songs. So I actually picked, well, I picked a lot. But there were some of my favorites that I personally picked. But I would say my favorite wake up song, and maybe this is cliche, but personally, my own opinion, my favorite wake up song had to be, I’ll Be Seeing You from Billie Holiday. And I think a lot of that had to do with that was in our last week of song on Opportunity. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I really encourage you to watch GOOD NIGHT OPPY. You’ll see why that would be my personal favorite wake up song. But it was the last week of song for Opportunity. Steve Squires and our lead scientist, he never picked the wake up song, but we let him pick the last one. So I think that will forever always be my favorite because it’s such a meaningful, emotional part of my life.


Naomi Meredith  36:43

Aww it’s really sweet. I got emotional watching that and I felt very connected to the rovers in the song played and I got emotional. So I can only imagine how you were feeling when that was playing. Okay, so let’s get a little positive. This one. So how long does it take to get the rovers to Mars and a few classes asked that so Stephanie B. and Jessica A., we’re wondering.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  37:09

Great. So it depends on how the planets are aligned and the gravitational pull on the rover trying to get there. But on average, it takes about nine months, eight, seven to nine months to get the rovers to Mars. And so that’s like physically getting them there. And then we have to communicate with them. So we communicate at the speed of light. And depending on where Earth and Mars are in their orbit, that can be anywhere from like six minutes to 24 minutes of how long it takes for us to get a signal to the rover and back. So two different things. And not that you asked that particular question, but I just wanted to make sure and point that out communicating with the rovers is the speed of light, and it’s anywhere from six minutes-ish to 24 minutes-ish. But getting the rovers to the planet physically, we have our propulsion system to help us with that. And that takes anywhere from seven to nine months.


Naomi Meredith  38:07

Okay, so that’s actually probably a lot shorter than a lot of people might have guessed. Oh, that’s not terrible.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  38:14

No, as long as it takes for a mom to be pregnant and have a baby. Okay.


Naomi Meredith  38:22

So there’s some reference for you guys. Um, have you ever dreamt about traveling to space? So St. Pius X fifth and sixth graders were wondering, and there was a couple other classes that were wondering that too.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  38:36

Yeah. So I would love to go into space, but I get really homesick. I always have. So and I would miss my kids. Like if the question was would I ever go to Mars, the answer would be no not really because I love Earth. Earth is the best planet and my family is here and so I would miss them too much if I went to Mars, but I would love to go into space for like a day and come back and even better I’d love to take my family and we all go to space for like a day and come back. I’d love to see what it’s like to be weightless.


Naomi Meredith  39:12

Do you get on like motion sick?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  39:16

I do. I also get motion sick. Yeah, I would definitely need to take whatever that medicine is to help me not be motion sick.


Naomi Meredith  39:23

So that’s same with me so I don’t know how that would go. I might be here on Earth by myself but we’ll see. Um, so with rovers they have some really cool names some really inspiring names and Javier A. was wondering, how do you all give the names to the rovers?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  39:41

Oh, awesome. So there is a naming contest that happens about six months before we launch the rovers, so keep your eyes out when we have the next rover launch. Because we get you guys to help us name the rovers. We opened it up and kids write essays on what they think the rovers name should be and why. And then our team we get to read, we split the essays up, but we read through all the essays and pick out our top and we narrow it down and we finally pick the name for the rover. So there was a kid named Alex who named Perseverance. And his essay was awesome. Um, you can go read it if you go Google his essay entry on the internet, but um, yeah, so you guys help us name the rovers. That’s how they get their names.


Naomi Meredith  39:41

Oh, did you name Opportunity? Was that you?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  40:33

I wish, but no. It was another kid, Clara named Curiosity. Trying to remember who named Spirit and Opportunity. But another student. I think she was like, in middle school, helped name both Spirit and Opportunity.


Naomi Meredith  40:47

That’s so cool. Okay, um, speaking of Spirit and Opportunity, we are at our last question. There was over 200 questions. So thank you for submitting. So hopefully we answered a bunch of those. So for Spirit and Opportunity, are Spirit and Oppy going to stay where they are? So they’re still up on Mars? Are they going to stay there? And that’s from Thomas Heart Academy.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  41:10

Yes, they’re going to stay there. They will forever be there until or unless a human goes up there and moves it or brings it back home or something. But we probably won’t bring them back home, even if we could because they’re heavy. And everything we bring back costs money, but there might be reasons that they try and repair them on Mars someday or something, but they will forever be where they lie today. 


Bryan Miller  41:37

Hi, guys, this was an awesome conversation. I mean, I’ve been smiling, like my cheeks hurt. I’ve been smiling from beginning to end. Because these kids have asked all the questions that I too wanted to ask. And for those of you that may not have had your answers, or your questions answered, I’ve been watching all the questions come through. And I can tell which people have not yet watched GOOD NIGHT OPPY because there are so many questions in there that the movie answers for you. So I suggest if you had a question, go back and watch GOOD NIGHT OPPY because those questions will be answered within the movie’s timeframe. And if not, NASA’s website has unbelievable information for you, as students or teachers to access and use in your classroom. I used to teach fourth grade space, and I used NASA’s website literally for my entire curriculum. So they have so much available for you. So Bekah, I have a question for you. And it is around the distance that the robots travel in a day, because in the movie, it says some days the robot has good days. And as the robot aged, it got arthritis, right. And some days it had better days and got far. And in the movie, they make it seem like it was able to get from the one crater to the other in movie magic time. But in real life, how long does it take for a rover to move in a day? Or how far can it move within a day usually?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  43:23

Yeah, great question, Bryan. So on average Spirit and Opportunity, on average would travel about half a football field, if you want to think about it that way. So like 50 yards ish, we use meters. But let’s fold it in half a football field, on a good day, potentially a football field 100 yards. And that’s about how fast they can go to. It’s their limitation of the motors. Perseverance can drive a little faster, but not much faster. So that’s that’s about how long they take to rove on any given day.


Bryan Miller  43:59

Very cool. And I mean, it’s amazing what movies can do to speed things up. But in reality, you’re all sitting there watching and sending that signal, which takes as you said, minutes or 24 minutes to get to it to say, Okay, do this. And you know, you guys are doing all your other work that you have to do and watching this all come to life and actually happen. So I think that that’s just so remarkable the planning stages that go into just what a day’s mission looks like, let alone the lifetime of mission and going from a three month mission to a 15 year mission. Right? I mean, it’s just absolutely incredible. And I’m sure it was magic for all of you to continue to push the boundaries of what you were exploring and coming up with new missions on the fly, I guess. I mean, the ultimate mission was to find pH water in the existence of Mars, but every day was probably like okay, what do we want to do with it today? And I loved hearing, like talking about wanting to do drag races, how fast they can get motion can get from one place to the other. I mean, it’s, it’s stuff that I as a person on earth would want to do with robots that I had sitting here in my room. And you’re doing this with robots that are controlled by, you know, NASA. And I think that that is just so much fun. What’s one of the like, the things that really is, like memorable, like a day that was memorable to you, you know, besides, obviously, like them going to sleep for their final time? Is there anything that stood out as like a memorable moment?


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  45:33

Yeah, for sure. So I think for me, personally, there was a time and I talked about this in the movie too. But there was a time when Opportunity was losing her memory. And I happened to be the person appointed to, we call it the tiger team lead, but really, it was like the, the lead to solve the problem. So I was leading the team to help solve the problem. And we worked really hard to figure out a workaround for Opportunity to figure out how to like help with these memory problems. And this part is not talked about in the movie, but it took months of me going into the testbed there, like version of the rover, and testing different things, I would be calling up people that were on the mission from the very beginning that were in the movie and like the old footage, but aren’t on the mission anymore, I’d be calling them up and being like Tracy Nielsen, like all these people that I had, didn’t know, but they were like legends in my mind, because I saw them on the TV when I was in eighth grade. But I’d be like, I’m gonna call Tracy Oh, my gosh, like she’s a legend. But I’d call her up and be like, Look, I have this problem. I don’t know. Anyway, they would help me. So I think one of the most memorable times was we came up with a solution to our problem. And I tested the testbed many times. And then I finally got to implement the solution on the vehicle, and Steve Squyres was there, and we were waiting for the data to come down. And we saw in the data that it works. And now it’s like, that was a huge thing for me in my career, and just personally, but also getting to report to Steve Squyres, Dr. Squyres that like, it worked, and he was excited. It was just like the best day of work for me, probably. But I think my favorite thing about working on the rover’s is the fact that I work with so many different kinds of people, so many different people, not only like the instruments themselves are from all over the world. So it’s like, it pushes our barriers down and our borders down. And we’re all like, people from France, and Norway, and whatever countries are coming together for this common goal. And there’s no politics and there’s no because we’re all really in it to help answer this question. So I love working and learning from people from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all cultures, it’s really rewarding to go into work everyday for that reason.


Bryan Miller  48:11

Oh, I mean, we thank you  for doing all this and, and continuing to research and help us learn about our existence here on earth through other planets. This was an amazing conversation. I wish we could go for much, much longer. But we know that you have a very busy day ahead of you and other meetings to attend to. Naomi, is there anything that you’d like to say last thoughts to wrap things up?


Naomi Meredith  48:35

Yeah, thank you so much for letting me chat with you. And just being an inspiration for my own students selfishly, but just students around the world because you never know who you’re going to impact out there. And just hearing from experts who are in the field, especially a woman in STEM is just so amazing and powerful. And your story is just super important. And just keep up the awesome work.


Bekah Sosland Siegfriedt  49:01

Thank you so much, Naomi, and Bryan and everybody that’s helped put this together. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

GOOD NIGHT OPPY

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

stem teacher boundaries

3 STEM Teacher Boundaries You Need Now [ep.56]

3 STEM Teacher Boundaries You Need Now [ep.56]

STEM teacher boundaries

Check out the full episode on 3 STEM Teacher Boundaries You Need Now:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

Stepping into a K through five STEM role is equally exciting and overwhelming. If you were a classroom teacher before, like I was, you were thrown into a whole bunch of new teacher responsibilities.

Without systems and boundaries, you can quickly drown in everything you have to do, and you might not get anything done. In this episode, I will share with you three STEM teacher boundaries that you need to start now to be productive and not overwhelmed.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • 3 STEM teacher boundaries
  • Why each boundary is important
  • Tips for implementing each boundary

Resources Mentioned: 

 

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

Stepping into a K through five STEM role is equal parts exciting and overwhelming. If you were a classroom teacher before, like I was, you were definitely thrown into a whole bunch of new teacher responsibilities. Without systems and  boundaries set in place, you can quickly drown in all of the things that you have to do, and you might not get anything done. In this episode, I will be sharing with you three STEM teacher boundaries that you need to start now, so you can be productive and not overwhelmed. 


Naomi Meredith  01:08

Before we jump in, I have a couple quick announcements for you. So the doors are open for my K-2 virtual STEM planning workshop where you can join me and other teachers live to create a unit plan for one of your primary student grades while also building up, like we’re talking about in this episode, systems and routines to help you with your K-2 STEM planning. It can be very overwhelming planning for the younger students. But within this two-hour timeframe, you are going to be productive and be filled with so many ideas that you might have more than what the school year even has for you. So definitely check in the shownotes for the link. As I said, you can join live, and it will be recorded. So if you can’t be there live, still join in that recording, which will be sent to you and you can work on it in your own time. So definitely worth a two-hour investment where you can set this up for you to be productive for the whole rest of the school year. Likewise, I have an upcoming STEM virtual book club that I would love for you to join. I know it can be a lot reading books as a teacher throughout the school year. But there’s lots of ways that you can implement it throughout your day. I will even have pacing guides for the book that we will read that month. I’m not picking anything super huge anyway. But as a STEM teacher, you always need to continue to learn and promote a growth mindset in your own life and for your students. So what better way to do that with this book club. So the doors aren’t open yet on that one. But make sure to check out the waitlist so you will be notified as soon as it’s open. And we can start reading together or just join for the community part because we know in clubs you don’t always read the book anyway. But it’s good to have those discussions. So definitely want you to be a part of that this year. 


Naomi Meredith  03:02

I’ve talked a little bit here and there on this podcast about my role as a K through five STEM teacher. But as my first year in this role, it was a new position and district, so I had a lot of hats that I had to wear. On Mondays I would teach GT science. Yep, gifted and talented science to students who are identified in science. And then Mondays and Tuesdays the times I wasn’t meeting with my group of students, then I would co-plan and co-teach with teachers in my building to help them implement STEM innovation into their regular instruction. Wednesday through Friday, I was part of the STEM specials rotation where I would see students K through five, my same six classes for those three days in a row. And then it would start all over again. On top of that I was, and I still am, the point of contact and technology person in the building. So there’s no other person in her building, who’s the tech person for troubleshooting. That’s all me. And yes, all of these things I don’t get paid extra for. So with the funding and who we have in our building, how I split the week with the specials rotation, I now teach K through five STEM and I am still the tech person. So with all of these different things, and I know as a teacher you have a whole lot of things going on too, so setting boundaries is super, super, super important no matter what your role is, because you really need to protect your time. I’ve said this before, teaching K through five STEM is like throwing a birthday party six times. It is a very high energy position, and you need to make every moment special and exciting for all the classes because STEM is important and you love it. I know you do, you’re in this position. But you definitely need to have these boundaries in place so you can actually plan during your plan time. I hardly take work home and that is because I have a lot of boundaries and I use my plan time to plan. Now, if there’s something I need to research and learn more about, sure, I’ll do it over the weekend. But that’s pretty rare. I’m not doing that very often. So when it comes to actual planning and work, I don’t do it outside of school, I do things like this for you. And I gave you a thumbs up. This might sound really strict with the things I’m going to be sharing about. But just a little bit of insight about me, I grew up as being a yes person. I didn’t have any boundaries. I just always said yes to things and then it just made me very anxious. I just thought, that’s what nice people do. That’s what a nice girl does. Well, I have been really growing in this area as a person. I’m being vulnerable on here. But setting boundaries is a good thing. It’s taken me a long time to realize that, and not just in your job, but in life in general boundaries are okay. It’s okay to say no, I’m not perfect at this. But I’m definitely going to be sharing these strategies that have really helped me, as a STEM teacher. Even as a teacher in the classroom, this is very helpful as well, where my boundaries in the workspace as a STEM teacher helped me to be successful, but also the people around me, it helps them be successful as well. I can’t be in 10 million places at once, even though I tried to be in a lot of different ways. But setting these things up can really maximize your time and your space overall, and even just make this STEM teaching more enjoyable, which is the thing that we love the most. So here are the three boundaries that I use that I think you can do as well. 


Naomi Meredith  06:46

The first boundary to set in place is starting and ending your class on time. This one’s hard and easy. There’s a lot of tricks that I have for this one. But my reasoning for this is that you need to build respect for yourself. If you’re not starting or ending on time, how can you expect the classroom teachers to bring their students to start and end on time? I of course make mistakes. There’s times that I’m like, oh, no, I didn’t realize it was a different schedule today. But overall, I’m pretty good at starting and ending on time. And yes, it does take time being in your space to understand the flow of the classroom and how you’re going to set that up, which we talked about a lot in past episodes, specifically check out episode eight and 12, where I talked about management, behavior management and classroom management. Even thinking about the structure of your lessons that’s going to help you with the time management in general, if your classroom feels like a hurricane every single day. Since there’s no system, it will be hard to start and end on time. So really get that in place. Here are a few tricks that I do that for the students. I like them to visually see how much time they have to actually work. Just setting up a timer on the screen is extremely helpful. This will help them in the long run to to set up their own boundaries. So see how we’re helping each other. I like to use classroom screen.com, my absolute favorite free online tool. You can buy the paid version, and I think it’ll save all your screens. I don’t 100% know, but I absolutely love it. And a fun new background pops up every day. For myself, even in conjunction with that classroom screen, I will set timers on my watch all day. I am always talking to my watch, like a spy kid, where I’m like, Hey, I’m not going to say it out loud, because my watch actually might do it, I’m wearing it. But I will tell my watch to set a certain number timers and it does on my hand. So that’s really helpful for my class time. Also, for my transition time, I have five to 10 minutes and between classes, which I know is very lucky not everybody gets. But even for that transition time. As soon as the class leaves, I set a timer on my watch, which is going to help me with starting the next class on time. Likewise, I have set up in my Google Calendar. That is my preference. I think you can do this in Outlook, if that’s the calendar you use. But I have set up a recurring event for my whole STEM schedule of when my plan time is when I see each class when my lunchtime is. So I have that set up in my calendar as a recurring event. So when you look at my calendar, it always looks like I have a lot going on. But I have it all set up connected to my watch where I have all the times pop up on my watch and I know my schedule for the day. I will even go in if we have a delayed start and change the time so the correct times will pop up so I’m not referring to an email and all of that. So this sounds very type A I have been type A in the past or qualities of either type A but I’m actually more of a B-plus kind of person. But there are some things that really help with that time management when it comes to the end. have class when students are all cleaned up and ready to go, I’m very thankful for this setup where my classroom is, but I actually have students line up in my hallway, this may or may not be an option for you. But the students are in the hallway and they are ready to go for their teacher. The classroom teachers don’t like it when they’re in the hallway very long, because they get start getting loud and noisy. I’m not I’m not going to manage that. So the classroom teachers will actually almost always show up on time, because they know I’m going to end on time and their kids are going to be in the hallway ready for them. So this has actually helped teachers finish up their playing time. I know playing time is precious, I was a classroom teacher to my time is equally as precious as well. Those in between times, I will have to use the restroom, get water be an actual human, set up something really quick for a transition, I might even need to talk to a student privately, or a teacher might have a question for me privately. So that little bit of time and not just sitting there with my feet up on the table will not be nice. But that’s really important. I’ve worked at schools where specialist teachers who don’t end on time, the classroom teachers will end up showing up late and it just creates this whole cycle. So build that trustworthiness, really starting to end on time. It’s such a good boundary, it can be really hard, you will mess up, I still mess that. But overall, it’s just a really good thing to set in place. 


Naomi Meredith  11:24

The next STEM teacher boundary is to own your email. I’m awesome. At my work email, I’m trying to get away better with my work email. I’m just figuring out how the common themes and everything. But with work email, I’m so good at it. This has always been a good hack for me. And I know email can be overwhelming, but own it, you can definitely own it and make it work for you. I really try to have at least 15 or less emails in my inbox. That means I’m constantly reading my emails when they pop up on my phone. I am hardly ever sitting down and answering emails during my plan time or when I get to school. I feel like that is a big waste of time. And a lot of the emails are things that are quick and that can be answered or just need like a one or two sentence reply. So I am reading my email all day. I know as a classroom teacher, that can be hard when you have parents who are emailing you. So that is definitely up to you. Maybe your school policy, you’re not allowed to check your phone. But I am looking at my email all day I have a popup on my watch. I can’t respond on my watch at this time. But I’m always reading it. And I’m always deleting emails, replying back and sorting them in folders. So I have a ton of different folders set up where I am organizing things constantly, so I can refer back to them when I need them. It is such a big pet peeve of mine when people don’t read their emails, even if I don’t answer right away. I read it. I read things right away. That also includes my work email, I’m reading it right away. Sometimes I need to think about the answer or do some research about it. But I read it all the way. And so that can be really frustrating to when I email and people ask me the same question. So oftentimes, I will reformat things that I have said before, in just a nice way. It’s like kind of like will read your email. So be an adult on your email, read it. But definitely checking it throughout the day helps a time, it will give you back a lot of your plan time. Likewise, with that, I told you that I am the tech person. And so I will have teachers email me if they have a specific technology issue, I actually can answer them a lot quicker. And then if they come into my room and interrupt me when I’m teaching, I’m teaching just like they’re teaching, I don’t want to go and interrupt them. So an email can be way quicker, I can oftentimes take a screenshot of the solution. 


Naomi Meredith  13:44

Before reading an email I sent to another teacher who had a similar issue, I can type it out pretty fast. And so it’s not as disturbing. Trust me, I’m not on my phone all day, I don’t get that many emails. So don’t picture I’m in my classroom. I’m on my phone constantly. But I’m just saying just answer them as they come. And it will help you with that technology management. I also like to send calendar invites, I have Outlook for my work email, but you can do this any Google calendar as well. But I like to send invites, if I am meeting with teachers one on one, because that way it will pop up in their calendar as well. I don’t have to send a reminder email, it will do that for them. And also for me, I have it in my calendar as well. So then it can definitely keep me organized. So that’s a nice hack as well. Finally, when it comes to emails that you are sending all the time, you’re like, Ah, I send this all the time. I’m always saying the same thing like bring your devices to STEM in my classroom actually don’t have a computer lab, the students actually bring their classroom devices and bring them to STEM. I’ve done that for the whole five years. I’ve been in this position and it’s good for student responsibility of their devices. But if I know they’re going to bring their devices for a unit I will actually set add up my emails to pre send for that unit the day before at 3pm. So if a teacher does happen to see it on a weekend, I don’t expect them to, but it’ll be in their inbox in the morning when they come into work. So they know students need to bring their devices. So it’s nice to have these all set up and pre scheduled. So I’m not scrambling, oh, no, they need their computers or the classroom teacher is not scrambling. So that’s really helpful as well. I will also do this for my after school clubs, I have a whole bunch of clubs that are going on and multiple groups. So I will sit down, yes, this takes some time. But then I don’t have to go and think about it later. I will schedule reminder emails of when they are meeting that day, what time they need to be picked up. And so that is all set up for my whole rest of school year, I have my email scheduled all the way till the end of the school year. So that way, that’s not an email, I have to think about, like I said, and it is all ready to go. Finally, with the email also set up notification timers. This is something that I have played around with on my phone, but I have my email setup on my phone where it will turn on notifications during the workday. And it will also turn off when the workday is over. It won’t turn on during weekends, I will also manually turn it off when I have a day off of work, or if it’s a holiday, because you’d want me to answering email outside of school. Yes, I’ll answer during the day. But there’s usually nothing that important that I need to be looking at and reading when I’m not at school. And if I’m staying on top of it, there’s not much that’s happening outside of school anyway. So that’s just really protecting my time, you could even delete the app during holiday breaks if you want to. But that is your time. And I think that’s super important. So play around with your notification settings, that can be really helpful. 


Naomi Meredith  16:50

The final boundary I have is for technology management. So if you are like me, you are the tech person or you collaborate with a tech person in your building. These are some strategies and boundaries that I have set up in my space and in my building, because there weren’t any before. So this took a lot of work and growth mindset for me and for the classroom teachers as well, to make sure that we can be successful. So if you don’t manage to type technology also listen in this might also actually help you with your classroom as well and how things are managed. Even though I am the designated technology person, STEM isn’t and shouldn’t be the only class in the building where students use technology. So there might be mixed opinions of this in your building. But this shouldn’t be the only time they’re using devices. We are living in a digital age and students should be interacting and using technology in different ways throughout the day. We do as teachers, we don’t just use it to type a word document, althoughwe’re hopefully using it as a creation tool and a teaching tool. And we have to teach our students that. So likewise, if teachers are using this in their classroom, they also have to learn how to troubleshoot and do all that this goes back to growth mindset. I didn’t know any of this stuff, I knew little things here and there coming into this role, but I didn’t even know the Wi Fi password for two weeks in this role. So there definitely is needs to be a growth mindset. I know you can’t tell people that but also giving teachers the opportunity to troubleshoot on their own and try it and giving them the tools to be successful, will also help you out as well with the boundaries. 


Naomi Meredith  18:32

A couple of ways that I do this is I will talk to the staff at the beginning of the year of what my role is and ways that they can get support with technology help. So a lot of teachers who are new in the building don’t even know what STEM is. So I’ll even explain that and how that’s different than a technology class. You might be lucky and work in a building where you have STEM and technology I know of teachers who’ve had that even to showing the difference between the two and how tools will be used in your space. So that will help teachers with their lesson planning. Also, I provide them a back to school technology checklist. I will link this in the show notes. It’ll be completely free. So you can check it out, modify how you need it. But it is a digital checklists I’ll send out a couple weeks before school starts. They can look at it when they need. But I will not only have a checklist of things they need to set up in their room on their teacher device for student accounts during that work week. But I will also link videos and helpful guides that will help them through that process if they don’t know how to do it. Likewise, they really encourage us for you before me for the teachers to really help each other out. Often I will see teachers asked me a question but then their teammate just asked me the day before the same question I went in and help them so it really helps encourage them to talk to each other to problem solve the problem. Also, if you’re in a similar position and even think about the technology that you have in your classroom, if there is not a system in place, set one up, out was in charge of assigning all of the devices in my school and when we became a one to one district, so that meant every student in our district would have a device that was assigned to them like a library book. And this change came maybe a few weeks before school started. And I was in charge of assigning all of them to 500 plus units by myself. So there was no system set in place. So that is something that I set up that is repeatable by me. Or if there was anybody else who was in my position or helping me with that would be so lovely if I had help, but that way that it could be repeatable as well. 


Naomi Meredith  20:35

So setting up this system for any tool that you’re using in your classroom is really helpful so that others can understand the process as well. And it will help you wrap your mind around it. Also, any way that you can get students and teachers involved in the process. For us students will use the same device every year for four years, and then they’ll get a new device. And so that means students end the school year their devices are in their cart, and then they have to go with them to the next grade. Well, that’s a lot on one person to assign out. So what I’ll do is, I’ll put all of the carts in our library, and then teachers will come bring their classroom to the library to get their last year’s device, after they’ve talked about digital citizenship and handling their device. And then they’ll bring it back to the room and then I’ll deliver the classroom cart. So that’s a good incentive as well, because if they don’t pick up their device, they won’t have a cart that I can reassign. So it also gets that buy in as well, where it’s also not all on me, but it’s helping with that responsibility too. As a recap, here are the three STEM teacher boundaries that you can set up to really help maximize your time and your productivity. First, we talked about starting and ending your class on time. Next is owning your email. And finally setting up systems and routines when it comes to your technology management. Like I said before, setting up boundaries is okay and it can be hard at first finding things that will work for you. But in the long run if you are being consistent with yourself and consistent with others. It will really help preserve your time and get you to the part where you are teaching the kids doing what you love and making a big impact in your classroom. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast. I would love to connect with you over on Instagram at Naomi Meredith underscore or send me an email to elementary STEM Coach podcast@gmail.com. Also make sure to check out my website Naomi meredith.com To see all the show notes from today’s episode, and Chapman K through five STEM resources. Any questions you have needs for resources or ideas for episodes, get in touch. I’ll talk to you soon.

stem teacher boundaries

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

stem-activities-for-february

5 STEM Activities for February [ep.55]

5 STEM Activities for February [ep.55]

stem-activities-for-february

Check out the full episode on 5 STEM Activities for February:  

Embed YouTube video here

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

February is one of my favorite months, and that is because my birthday happens to be on Valentine’s Day! I’m sure you know by now that I love a good theme. In today’s episode, I share five February STEM activities you can use in your classroom.

These are lessons that I have done with my students over the years, and they have absolutely loved them, so I know that your students will too. All of these STEM activities for February that I share can be done as one-day challenges, or you can spread them out over time. I have also done some of these activities when I was a classroom teacher, so you can implement them whether you’re a STEM teacher or a classroom teacher.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • 5 STEM activities for February
  • An overview of the 5 STEM activities
  • Tips for how to implement these 5 STEM activities

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

February is selfishly one of my favorite months, and it’s because my birthday happens to be on Valentine’s Day. You know by now that I love a good theme, so in this episode, I will be sharing with you five February STEM activities that you can use in your classroom. These are lessons that I have done with my students over the years, and they have absolutely loved them, I know that your students will too. 


Naomi Meredith  00:59

A couple of announcements for you before we jump into this fun episode: the doors are open to my live two-hour virtual STEM workshop that is going to help support you with K through two planning since we know that planning for the little ones can be pretty tricky. In this two-hour workshop, you will be planning a full unit for one of your grade levels that are in K through two. I will be showing you the exact system and templates that I use for my younger students. Now if you can’t make it live, that is absolutely okay because this will all be recorded for you. So if you are listening to this later and the live has passed, it will still be available. So you can go through this workshop on your own time. So of course, you’ll have that unit plan finished, but you will also create a base and a system that’s going to help you with future lesson planning. You’re going to have so much fun planning for the younger students that you’re actually probably going to start loving it as well and have all the ideas for a future lesson. So I hope you can join on in. All the info will be linked in the show notes. You can check out when that will be hosted, whether you join us live or you want to watch the recording. Also, coming up in the future, another way that you’ll be able to connect with me and other STEM teachers all over the world is I will be starting a virtual monthly book club. I know that reading can be a bit hard as a teacher in general, but this will help you find books that you might not have thought about before in the STEM education space. As I said, this is a great way to connect with other STEM teachers. Even if you don’t read the book, you know, that’s like a whole thing about book clubs, right? So there’s a waitlist started up for that. So don’t miss out, I would love to have you join in when that is live. So that will be also linked in the show notes. So jump in on these two opportunities! I have so many things coming up for 2023 to help support you and the elementary STEM space. Thank you so much again for being here, and I can’t wait to connect with you further. 


Naomi Meredith  03:06

All of these STEM activities for February that I’m going to be sharing with you can be done as one-day challenges or spread out over time. You know your schedule better than I do. I have done both of those methods for the lessons that I will be sharing with you. So definitely modify what will work best for you and the grade levels that you teach. I also did some of these when I was a classroom teacher. So if you are a classroom teacher that’s listening, definitely try these out as well. Again, everything will be linked in the show notes so you can recreate it if you want or if you don’t feel like recreating, I have it all laid out for you for every single one of these. They will be in my TPT shop and again linked in the show notes. So let’s jump in on these fun February STEM activities. 


Naomi Meredith  03:56

This first one is Groundhog Day shadows. This is one that you’d probably do at the beginning of the month since that’s when Groundhog Day is and this is really great to help students understand the science behind the light and shadows and also a little bit of history about Groundhog Day. I always show them the video of what Groundhog Day is, and if it has actually happened, they always have a replay of the groundhog if he has seen his shadow or not. In my opinion. Groundhogs are a little bit gross looking, their teeth are disgusting to me. So when I do this challenge, the groundhog picture I use is way cuter than a real groundhog. I do not like rodents. I’m pretty sure they’re a rodent, or they’re pretty close to one, and they gross me out. Anyway, for this challenge, you need a picture of a groundhog, a paper cup for each student, flashlights to share, and tape or glue. Students will color and cut out their groundhog. They can add it to the cup in whatever way works best for them. Sometimes I will even show students how to make an L brace using cardboard. If you don’t know how to do that it’s a great cardboard building technique. I have a video that you can use with your students, and there’s no sound on purpose. What I like to do is play the video on a loop on YouTube, and then students can watch it whenever they need to on my screen. So there’s actually a hack that I use all the time when I am teaching building techniques. So I’ll link that for you so you can check that out and use it as you need it. Students will build their groundhog that is on the cup and then around the classroom, they will create the shadow for the groundhog and figure out what they need to do to make the shadow bigger and smaller. If it’s nice enough outside, you could take the cups outside with the groundhog and use the light outside. I live in Colorado, so it’s usually not very nice in February. So that’s why I have to use flashlights. So again, a great one-day challenge that you can do with your students to teach them about light, shadows, and Groundhog Day. 


Naomi Meredith  06:08

The next STEM activity for February is candy heart baskets. The ultimate goal for this challenge is for students to build a basket and see how many candy hearts can fit in their basket without falling out, which can be another part of the challenge. They have to carry it across the room, which will really test the durability of their basket. You can grab those simple candy hearts, and you can find them anywhere. I am more partial to the Sweet tart candy hearts which taste like sweet tarts. I don’t really like the chalky ones. Of course, check on allergies and all that if you teach all the students in the school, and most of you who listen to this do. You might even want to find little heart erasers or something similar online, they’re about the same size, and then you can reuse them over and over again. So if you don’t want to deal with food, I totally get it. I typically don’t deal with food, either. Well, in this position, as a classroom teacher, I was more likely to use food because I knew all their allergies and all of that. So up to you on that little part. Students can build their baskets out of reusable items in the classroom or consumable items. From there, if you want to really dig into the math piece, students can create different types of graphs. So a line plot to graph the class results of how many candy hearts were in each basket. They can create a bar graph to represent how many of each color heart were in their basket and even create a Pictochart. So those definitely go along with, I know off the top of my head, third-grade math standards, and then you can even dive into those graphing questions: how many more and how many less, so really get that M in STEM. So if you are a classroom teacher, you could make this last all day. In reading, you can read about the history behind how candy is made. In science, you could build this candy heart basket, and then in math, you could do all the graphing, so this is really integrated content and can last you a whole day if you’re thinking about it. So this is a fun challenge to do in your classroom. 


Naomi Meredith  08:19

The next February’s STEM activity is a STEM and stories challenge. You can read the story Beekle and connect it to magnets. There is a long title for this story, I’m pretty sure it’s the Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat, which I might have butchered the title. I love his books. By the way, when I look back at what I have created and done, it seems like I really enjoy his stories, which I obviously do. In this story, there is an imaginary friend Beekle, and he’s having a hard time finding his human and connecting to someone who is just his person. While on the other side, there’s a human who’s having a hard time finding their imaginary friend. Eventually, they connect and just are absolutely obsessed with each other. Thinking about the science connection with this, you can have students explore things that are magnetic and not magnetic. From there, they can create their imaginary friend or unimaginary friend, how the book goes, so their imaginary friend and a human and how they can connect perfectly together. This might take a little bit longer than you think depending on the materials that you use. I used magnets and paper clips and other small things that can be attached. Then they created their little characters out of either construction paper or felt. So there’s a lot of art in this challenge, and it is definitely a STEAM project. But again, this can be a great one or two-day challenge that you do in your classroom. Then students could even have their own imaginary friends or unimaginary friends connect with other ones. But you can definitely take this further, and there can be a lot of creativity and smiles with this activity. 


Naomi Meredith  10:06

The next February STEM activity is having a themed engineer inspiration board. I love having these on hand for throughout the year. What you can do is find different images that relate to the month, or with Valentine’s Day, or other holidays in February. You can have students recreate those images using any materials that you have on hand. So again, you can use reusable or consumable items. If you want to take this a step further, they can quickly plan their design and build, and then they can share. Seesaw and Flipgrid are great options for this share. So especially if you are using things that are reusable, they can take it home by taking a picture. That’s what I like to say in my classroom. This is also a great STEM station for the younger students. So if you’re joining in on the workshop, Naomimeredith.com/primaryworkshop, then this could be an option that you can use when you are planning one of your STEM stations for your younger students. So very easy to prep, very easy to implement, and you don’t need a whole lot. There’s a lot of engagement that students can have in this activity. 


Naomi Meredith  11:16

The final STEM activity for February that you can try in your classroom is a Valentine’s box STEM challenge. This is something that I did when I taught third grade, and the kids loved it. Maybe this is something that you might even collaborate with the classroom teachers. So if you do Valentine’s parties or friendship parties in your school, maybe they make their Valentine’s box in your classroom, that might be a pretty cool connection. You can do this, and a lot of different ways you can have your students vote on a class theme. So maybe everybody’s box has to go along with the theme of space. So that will help a lot with creativity with constraints. Also, thinking about constraints, have some success criteria for the box. Does the box have something that opens and closes? Is there something that is shiny? Is there a place to put in the cards and a different place to take the cards out without breaking the box? So all of those different things might come to mind with your box. Also, put a limit on the size. When we did this, we made sure that the box will fit on top of their desk and that other students could easily put in Valentine’s cards. If you’re a STEM teacher and doing this challenge, I would recommend even having the boxes be a lot smaller. So can the box fit in a grocery bag? Because we know based on past episodes that I’ve done, Makerspace episodes five and six, if the projects are really big, it’s going to take a longer time. So a shoe box size is actually a great size when it comes to Valentine’s boxes.  So think about if you can do this challenge with your classroom. As I said, it’d be really cool to do this collaborating with classroom teachers, even if you did this with one group of older grades like fifth and sixth grade. That’d be pretty cool as well. So keep it in mind, have a fun way that you can have a STEM Valentine’s Box Challenge. 


Naomi Meredith  13:18

As a recap, here are the five February STEM activities that you can do in your classroom. First is Groundhog Day shadows. Next is candy heart baskets. Third, themed engineer inspiration boards for February. Fourth, and I know I said this out of order, the STEM and stories with Beekle and connecting those two magnets. And fifth, the Valentine’s Day box STEM challenge. Hopefully, this gave you some good ideas of what you can do in your classroom when it comes to February STEM challenges. Definitely take off with it and run with it. Or if you don’t feel like making anything, as I said, I’ve made all of this for you. It’s linked in the show notes and also in my TPT shop. So that will definitely save you some time. Take it from me. I love themes, and I love planning this way for fun. It’s like it’s a creative outlet for me, so you can definitely check that out. Also, while you’re there in the show notes, make sure you sign up for the K through two virtual STEM planning workshop and join the waitlist for the STEM teacher book club that will be coming up in a little bit. Thank you so much again for listening, and I will chat with you soon.

stem-activities-for-february

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your earbuds!

1st-5th stem teacher

From Long-Term Substitute to 1st-5th STEM Teacher with Tiana Walton [ep.54]

From Long-Term Substitute to 1st-5th STEM Teacher with Tiana Walton [ep.54]

1st-5th stem teacher

Check out the full episode on From Long-Term Substitute to 1st-5th STEM Teacher with Tiana Walton:  

 

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Episode Summary

In today’s episode, I am interviewing Tiana Walton, who is a former long-term substitute and is now a STEM teacher for first through fifth graders. In her role, she teaches over 400 students in her building and loves to teach her students and show them all the ways to learn about projects and create their challenges.

Tiana shares with us her journey to becoming a STEM teacher, how things have been going in her first year of teaching STEM, and more. If you are new to STEM or considering transitioning into a STEM role, this episode is for you!

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How Tiana transitioned from a long-term substitute to a k-5 STEM teacher
  • How her first year as a STEM teacher is going
  • What surprised her the most about her STEM role
  • Advice for new STEM teachers

Meet Tiana Walton:

Hello, my name is Tiana Walton, a former long-term substitute. I work as a first-year STEM teacher in a small town outside of Lubbock Tx.

My role is teaching STEM to over 400 students in 1st grade – 5th grade. I love getting to teach my students and showing them all the ways to learn about projects and create their challenges.

Being a first-year STEM teacher had its challenges but purchasing this amazing curriculum from Naomi has helped my classroom a ton! My goal is to keep all students engaged, learning, and creating successful projects. The biggest achievement I’ve accomplished is getting to teach this class to my students and successfully keeping them part of every challenge.

Outside of teaching my students, I enjoy hanging out with my two beautiful kids and husband. We stay active by playing sports, participating in gymnastics, and more.

Connect with Tiana:

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

In today’s episode, I am interviewing Tiana Walton, who is a STEM teacher for first through sixth graders. Tiana and I connected together on Instagram when she had recently purchased my K through five STEM year long plan. It’s been really fun chatting with her about the lessons that she’s teaching in her classroom when I am teaching the same ones in my classroom at the same time, so it’s been really fun chatting back and forth. She asks me excellent questions all the time. So I asked her, “Hey, why don’t I have you on the podcast? I think you would be a perfect guest to have other teachers hear about you and your story in the STEM classroom.” Tiana is a former long-term substitute and she works in a small town outside of Lubbock, Texas. Her role teaches over 400 students in her building and she loves to teach her students and show them all the ways to learn about projects and creating their challenges. Outside of teaching Tiana loves to enjoy hanging out with her two beautiful kids and husband. She also loves to stay active by playing sports, participating in gymnastics and more. I loved chatting with Tiana and I know you are going to love to hear from her. She has so much passion and excitement for STEM, and it really shines in the way that she talks about her classroom. I hope you enjoy this episode. 


Naomi Meredith  01:50

Well, thank you Tiana’s so much for being here today. I’m so glad that we finally get to chat virtually since we’ve been talking on Instagram over the past few months. When I was starting my podcast, I gave you a little inkling and asked would you want to be on the show? You said yes. So I double checked with you again a few months later, and you’re still excited to be here. So I was so happy to chat with you and you’re in your cute classroom. Before we hit record, you were showing me the cute poster that you have behind you with different inventors. So I know that we’re gonna have a great time chatting together, you’re just so much fun and so smiley. So for my audience and and for me, too, for those of us who don’t know what you yet, if you wouldnt mind telling us about yourself, your teaching background, and then how you stepped into your role as a STEM teacher?


Tiana Walton  02:39

Well, my name is Tiana Walton. I’m a small town girl from Slaton, Texas. It’s about 15 minutes from Lubbock. I stepped into teaching. A few years after I graduated, I became a long-term sub, because COVID hit really hard here. Our district was like, you know, let’s do this COVID relief subs, you know, teachers will be in and out. So I got to spend full-time on campus for two and a half years. Then going into my third year, my admin approached me and she said, “Hey, we have this bright idea. We want to bring STEM to our campus.” And I was like, okay, and she said, Will, you become our STEM teacher. And I said, Yes, of course, without even thinking about it. I was like, Yes, um, yes. And this is my first year, and it’s been so great. Having your curriculum really helped me a lot, because I was like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I gonna do? I don’t have anything to teach.” And just having that K through fifth grade STEM all year long plan has been I mean, it’s been amazing. I don’t have to prep anything besides printing. And I’m like, this is so great. And so I’ve loved it. It’s been a few months, and it’s been going really good. My kids have enjoyed it. The campus has been talking about it. So it’s been perfect for us. 


Naomi Meredith  04:01

Oh, that’s so sweet of you. Well, that’s so sweet how you said yourself in that you like, tell me how you like my year long plans. So it’s so kind of you and I’m so glad it’s been helpful for your role and what a unique background you have, because you’re so used to teaching on the fly already in a sub position. And you probably taught all the grades. So you’re such a great fit for STEM because you already know how it goes, how crazy it is. That’s so interesting that they had COVID Relief subs. I wish we had that at my school at the time, but as we know, it was so crazy. And everyone’s had everything different. 


Tiana Walton  04:37

So the next day was like, Oh, you’ll be here. Oh, wait, nevermind, you’ll go here. So it was really being flexible and being able to fit in each classroom. I mean, it opened up my relationships with the kids too, because now I have my own classroom and they’re like, “Miss Walton, we’ve been waiting for you to teach.” It’s been so good. It’s been so amazing. These students are so kind and they’re loving. They care about you and they know you care about them. So it’s been great being able to build relationships with all of them.


Naomi Meredith  05:11

Oh, yeah, I love that part too. It’s cool seeing all the kids in the school like another STEM teacher I chatted with. You may feel the same way. It’s kind of like being the cool aunt where like you have a really fun loving relationship. You’re like, Okay, you’re on your way.


Tiana Walton  05:30

It’s perfect.


Naomi Meredith  05:32

Yeah, how often do you see the kids? Are you with them the whole week? Or is it just once a week?


Tiana Walton  05:38

So I see first through fifth grade. And so I’ll see each class once a week. So each, each class will come once to me Monday through Friday. So I’ll have one class Monday, another class Tuesday, and it’ll rotate throughout the week. So it’s been great. It’s a really awesome schedule to


Naomi Meredith  05:57

Yeah, that’s interesting. How do you manage projects? Because that a lot of STEM teachers I’ve talked to I feel like are more it’s more common, where you see one, a different class every day, like, do you how do you store everything? How do you manage all of that? That’s a lot.


Tiana Walton  06:12

I have cabinets everywhere in my classroom, and that has been my storage savior. So like, if we do the building your own shelters, everybody I’ve been trying to group them together so that I don’t have individual projects all over the place. So I’ve done table projects for the most part. So each group has a section where they store their projects. So it’s helped out a lot.


Naomi Meredith  06:37

Oh, good. That’s good. Do you do a lot of digital assigning when it comes to the plans or engineering notebooks just because it changes so much every day? Or do you just keep it all with the projects?


Tiana Walton  06:48

I want to try the digital next year because I did all paper this year. So I did a system of where month to month, what we’re working on and classroom folders. So if they do a worksheet, it goes in their teacher’s classroom folder, and then at the end of the month, they’ll take all their papers home. I want to try doing the digital because Google Classroom is what we use. So I feel like if I can put it out there for them, they can do it on Google Classroom, save it and it’s there instead of doing the worksheets and printing it out.


Naomi Meredith  07:20

Totally, I did the same exact thing. I go back and forth to like some things. I still use paper. Like I always have kids plan on paper for the older kids. Because, you know, it’s it’s hard to draw digitally. I mean, for an elementary student, like we don’t have the tools where we have a professional drawing pad with a stylus. So I’m with you, I still use paper for a lot of stuff. But I mean, it sounds like you’re really organized and you’re look you’re happy today, you’re on break, and you’re talking to me, which is pretty amazing.


Tiana Walton  07:52

I know. I’m so excited to be here.


Naomi Meredith  07:56

So what has been your favorite part about teaching STEM? I mean, I know that you love it. You love seeing the kids, but what else has been your favorite part about it?


Tiana Walton  08:04

I think my favorite part about doing it is knowing that there is more to learning rather than just math and reading and STEM steps up for different kids. I mean, you have those kids who rather use their hands to create things rather than reading a book. You have those kids who are all your science nerds and love building projects, and STEM class is a break away from learning. I mean, it’s not preparing you for the star, it’s not you have to make this grade or you know, so I love having the kids be themselves in my class because it opens up to all the personalities on the campus. It’s been really great.


Naomi Meredith  08:48

Good. That’s so funny. Because a lot a lot of teachers I feel like say the same thing, like in different ways. Like I feel like with STEM, you see the kids in a different light that can shine in a different way. And it’s so interesting. I don’t know if you have those conversations too, with like PE or in music. But sometimes it’s just depends on the kid. But sometimes they have a really hard time in PE but then I don’t see those behaviors in STEM. And it’s not that I’m some magical teacher, but there’s just something really special about STEM and that hands on learning and collaborating and PE might not be their favorite. And that’s like more to say why we need more STEM in schools, because it’s just an opportunity that most kids like it, but there are some kids it’s like their thing. And they’re like in their zone of genius. You probably see that too. 


Tiana Walton  09:39

Oh, yes. All the time. I do have those conversations with our art teacher. We always talk about, “Hey, how did the kids do for you today?” Like touch and go like what is something that I need to do to make them feel like okay, this is something they can do and not get into their heads like okay, I can’t do this. This is too hard. So we have those conversations with each other. She’s amazing. She’s always like, so hey, so and so what do you think? What do you think I need to do? And I’m like, Oh, he did great in my class last week. So this is what I, you know, these are the strengths he showed in my class. So we bounce ideas off of each other all the time, even though we teach two different things.


Naomi Meredith  10:20

Yep. Oh, yeah, we have the same thing. Because I feel the same way. Like I know, it can be like an island teaching STEM in a building if you’re not a STEM school, or you’re just a specialist teacher. So me and my teammates, we talk about students, I would say the most and just yeah, how to problem-solve, behavior management tricks, even though we have different subjects. So that’s definitely been helpful, too. Do you have any other STEM teachers in your district or nearby? I know, you said, you’re in a small town.


Tiana Walton  10:48

We have a guy who teaches our GT students, and it’s called Quest. So he touches STEM, but he doesn’t. So it’s like, your gifted and talented kids like those kids that are there above their grade level. So he gets those kids from each grade level, and they do different projects and stuff. It’s nice having him because he’ll come into my class, and he’s like, Oh, you’re doing really great. Like, getting his feedback, because he’s been doing it for years. So getting his feedback, really, like it boosted my confidence, because I’m like, Okay, I messed up on this, like, what in the world am I doing? But he comes in, and he’s like, Oh, you’re doing so great. The kids are always talking about your class. And just getting that feedback from my peers. I mean, it means a lot to me. So it works out.


Naomi Meredith  11:35

Oh, yeah. You’re kind of alone. In a sense, you’re pretty much the only adult in the room. But yeah, always have somebody there. There’s always a child there no matter what. I have a glass wall, so people can see what I’m doing. But I’m really alone all day. So that’s really nice that he could pop in and let you know, because you don’t always know. And trust me, I fail all the time. Like my room is a disaster. And like, I feel like with Kindergarten, I talk about Kindergarten a lot on this podcast, or in general. I love Kindergarten but they’re just so interesting to me, like those little kids were like, sometimes they get through a project really fast. And then sometimes it takes them forever and longer, and I don’t understand. They’re a mystery to me, and I love them. They’re so creative.


Tiana Walton  12:19

It’s exactly how my first graders are like they fly through things. And then they’re like, oh, wait, they’re taking their time on it. They’re coasting through, and I’m like, Okay, wait, this is something we should be pushing through. What are y’all doing?


Naomi Meredith  12:31

I know. And it’s usually it’s even the same class. You’re like, wait, what? What’s happening? If they’re still confusing me. They’re so creative and so confusing. And I know a lot of people struggle with the little kids, but they’re fun. But you even told me before we started recording that your son gets to be in your class, sometimes.


Tiana Walton  12:51

Yes, I enjoy getting to teach him. I’m like, okay, so I get to be the teacher today and not mommy right now. So it’s really awesome, because I get to see what he is like in class. And it’s, I mean, it’s awesome because he’s so invested in my class. He’s so excited about these robots that he wants one for Christmas. So I think getting to see him outside of mom and son relationship has really been, I think it’s really built my relationship too because we get to talk about my class, and he gets to enjoy being in my class. And he’s like, I see you in mom mode, but now I get to see in teacher mode, and it’s so much fun.


Naomi Meredith  13:32

That is so cool and not a lot of teachers can say that they’ve had their kid in their class. That is so amazing. That is so cool. Does he call you mom?


Tiana Walton  13:42

No, he calls me Miss Walton. And it’s so funny. 


Naomi Meredith  13:45

He does?


Tiana Walton  13:47

Yes. Some of the kids are like, that’s your mom. You know that right? And he’s like, Yeah, but she’s Miss Walton at school. So it’s awesome. 


Naomi Meredith  13:54

That is so cute. You’re like, wait, what, 


Tiana Walton  13:57

Like it catches me off guard because I’m like, Oh, okay. That’s how you do.


Naomi Meredith  14:02

Do you call him son? Like, “Hey, bud.”


Tiana Walton  14:04

I’m like, “Hey! Okay, what do you need Torbin? So it’s like, I’m trying. I have to be like, Oh, we’re still at school. I can’t say Hey, son. Yeah.


Naomi Meredith  14:13

That is so cute. He’s like, almost like acting with you.


Tiana Walton  14:16

It catches me off guard that I’m like, Oh, okay. Hey!


Naomi Meredith  14:23

That’s so cute. Well, besides your son calling you your name. Is there anything else that has surprised you in this role? Because it’s very hard, but also very exciting. There’s a lot of surprises like what were you like, oh, like I did not expect that. Has there been anything like that for you?


Tiana Walton  14:44

I think the biggest aha moment for me is the supplies that you use. Like some of the stuff can come from your house, and rather than go and buy it at the store. So it’s like, the supply list to me is like like, “Oh, I can use such and such for this, like, I don’t have to go buy, like all this stuff for it, it can be in the kit.” Or like, we can bring sponges from home and do this. And I’m like, oh yes, like, being the flexibility of the supply list is what really amazes me like, and I was expecting, oh, gosh, I’m going to spend a fortune on supplies. And that’s not been the case. So that’s been the biggest aha moment for me is utilizing supplies that kids use every day at home. In our projects, it’s been very flexible.


Naomi Meredith  15:31

That is a really good point. Because I feel like a lot of teachers that and I felt the same way I had a classroom and no, like no curriculum, also, no materials, and it can be really overwhelming that you have to have a ton of money to get started in STEM. It’s nice to have fancy things like those are nice to have. But like you said, it’s not required. I mean, you taught the whole STEM survival camp unit, half of this stuff is stuff kids find from outside.


Tiana Walton  15:58

And it was so amazing watching them like, Oh, we’re gonna use sticks for this. Oh, wait, Miss Walton, you have popsicle sticks, can we build with popsicle sticks? And I’m like, Yes. Like their brains were like overload. And they’re like, so excited to build all this stuff. And it was awesome watching them put it all in play, what they had planned out. 


Naomi Meredith  16:15

Oh, totally, and it’s cool. It’s good for kids to think of the world in new ways. Like I feel technology is super important. And I’m big on technology and using that. But also I’m really big on creating and doing things screen-free. I don’t know about you, as a kid, I love to build stuff. Like I would sit and build random things for my Barbie dolls. I made them go school.


Tiana Walton  16:38

I was a teacher, teddy bears for the students.


Naomi Meredith  16:42

Same I was saying either Yup, I was the same way. Like making stuff like, okay, like we’re doing art class or whatever. But I think like sometimes kids don’t always get those opportunities where they, their parents might forget about those things. So I’m so glad that they started this program at your school, and you’re excited about it. And you’re noticing we don’t have to have all this fancy stuff, even though you’re gifted all of these Dash robots. Yes. Oh, amazing. But it was awesome. But it’s good.


Tiana Walton  17:11

I know. And I always see parents out there like my kids love your classroom, and they want to know, what can they help bring them like, they don’t have to bring anything unless we’re doing a project. So it’s been, it’s been awesome. I mean, getting the kids involved and the kids using their minds in different ways. I mean, it’s been so great getting to watch them, put what they’re thinking out.


Naomi Meredith  17:34

Totally, and you’re gonna love it next year, and seeing the same kids again, and how much they’ve grown and learn from you. Because that is a really cool thing about being like in a special area. The position is like as a classroom teacher, they move on, you don’t normally move up with them, I wouldn’t do that. But you’re gonna come every year, and you’re gonna see that growth and you know what they did last year, and you get to build up upon that learning. So it’s just a really fun way to connect with the kids. So I know that so you’re so sweet. You’re like already talked about the year long plan. But are there any specific resources of mine that you’ve seen great success with your students or that you really love teaching so far this year? It’s like about halfway through the year. What have been some of your favorites so far?


Tiana Walton  18:22

I think me and my kids enjoy the Engineering Design Process chart. Because they’re like, Okay, we’re asking this, and then we imagine what’s going to happen. And then we’re going to put in our plan, and then we get to share and create like so they’re like, bouncing their ideas back off of that design process. And I love seeing it because I’m like, okay, yes, they’re so they’re invested. They remember it.


Naomi Meredith  18:44

Good. That is so good. Have there been like a certain project that they used that you’re like, “Wow, you guys really understand this Engineering Design Process?”


Tiana Walton  18:53

I think yes. My fourth graders, they did the community, they built their community thing. And I mean, they were like, Okay, so the question, what is the problem in this, we need to build out our landscape for our community. Okay, so the plan will be, and they were like, “Okay, so we’re going to use clay and we’re going to make roads and different things and I love seeing them put together their design, it was amazing. They loved it. They were like oh, Miss Walton it looks like a real community and I’m like yes, that’s what we’re trying to do. So it worked out, it was good.


Naomi Meredith  19:26

That was one of my favorites too. I love it because you and I are like teaching at the same time so that’s really cool to hear like your kids are loving it too.


Tiana Walton  19:35

They’re with this project so I can get like what my kids should be doing.


Naomi Meredith  19:40

Yeah if you go it changes. Like I did the clay the first time and mine was so sticky. I totally messed up and then kids were screaming and I had clay all over the floor, playdough and then they’re like, like flinging it in the air. It was all over their computers like, what is going on?


Tiana Walton  20:02

Oh, I was like, okay, stays on the table. We did not put clay anywhere else but the table. So my expectations were like I’m embedding these expectations in you. This is what we’re going to do. 


Naomi Meredith  20:13

Oh yeah. Well, and like with so many other projects, you like have to make up expectations along the way.


Tiana Walton  20:21

I’m like, Okay, I wasn’t expecting this. So next time I know, to say this expectation. So, yes. And it’s like a touch and go thing. I mean, now, I know next year when I do this for the second year, I’ll know okay, these were the expectations that are followed. This is what we need to continue to do for this project. So it’s been so much fun, right?


Naomi Meredith  20:40

I’m so glad. Yeah that community one was really cute, and a lot of kids start getting interested about, oh, maybe I want to be a civil engineer and design a city. Or maybe I want to be an architect, or they say, Oh, my mom’s an architect. So it’s really neat, like the conversations that they come up just from that project, or even others just thinking about just topics they might not realize they know. And I love the weirder the topic, the better. I love it. When I asked them, Oh, do you guys know what a Rube Goldberg machine? There’s like two kids, like raise your hand. And they’re like, oh, my gosh, you guys good thing, because my job is a teacher. And I get to teach you what a Rube Goldberg is, and then how it’s all going to connect together. So it’s just really cool. Like the more obscure the better.


Tiana Walton  21:30

Kindergartners were so excited to do that Rube Goldberg machine like they were like getting their work done in class so they can come to class. And I’m like, Okay, I’ve literally had every single one of you today. Let’s start. Like Miss Walton. We work so hard to get our work done. We want it to do this. And I’m like, Oh my gosh. And I mean, it was amazing. We used dominoes and the wooden blocks, and they use marbles to push their stuff. I mean, they were so invested. And they were like, We never knew what this was. That’s what this is. We watch your videos over this. And I’m like, Yes, exactly.


Naomi Meredith  22:05

So like there’s one thing.


Tiana Walton  22:07

Yes. Then putting the name to what they’re actually watching and not knowing what it was. It was so funny. I was like, Yeah, y’all probably watch these all the time. And they’re like, Yeah, we watched this guy on a skateboard do it one day. I’m like, Oh my gosh, how convenient.


Naomi Meredith  22:20

Oh, yeah, I had one kid. And I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. He’s like, that’s like in home alone. He has a Rube Goldberg machine.


Tiana Walton  22:28

this thing about that? Made me there.


Naomi Meredith  22:31

And so there’s one clip of him setting it up. I don’t think you can play it in school where it’s like actually hurting the people. But there’s one clip on YouTube. So the kids setting it all up and they’re all They’re all gasping there’s like feathers and there’s nails and then ice like it’s super dangerous. What do you think?


Tiana Walton  22:51

And he’s like setting this up for to catch robbers. Yeah, I’m


Naomi Meredith  22:55

like, well, that’s kind of dangerous. But yeah, they told me about like, Oh, you’re right. That’s yeah, that’s true. So you’ll have to look at


Tiana Walton  23:01

The bowling ball coming down from the thing? 


Tiana Walton  23:04

Yes.


Naomi Meredith  23:06

Like, yeah, he’s pretty smart. I’m like, we’re not going to do any of this in our design. But it’s fun to watch.


Tiana Walton  23:14

Simple on the table. Yeah.


Naomi Meredith  23:18

Well, if there’s anyone in a similar position like you would there, is there anything that you would recommend to them? Or any advice getting started? You’re super energetic, and I think you’re perfect for your position. It’s by anyone who’s starting out like you, what would you recommend or give advice,


Tiana Walton  23:36

I would say definitely resources, looking for just like you’re looking for curriculum that you think is best fit for your students getting to know their curriculum before you teach it, asking people around you for help. Because that takes a village. Literally, I think just looking into everything and preparing for what you’re about to step into is one of the biggest things I could say you need to do because STEM is not reading and math. It’s not just one particular thing. It’s everything. It’s building different things and learning what your kids are learning and you’re doing it together. So it’s I’ve loved it and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. And I think having your resource, having rgt teacher here and having my admin the other teachers, just science teachers they know exactly different kinds of projects and what STEM is so it’s been great having a village to help me get through this year.


Naomi Meredith  24:40

That is really great advice. That is so helpful. I hope you guys all go back and rewind that because that was so good. Well, thank you so much Tiana for being here. I’m so glad we got to chat. Since we’ve been messaging each other Um, is there a way that teachers can find and connect With the link in in the show notes.


Tiana Walton  25:01

Um, yes, you can find me on Instagram. I’m strictly on Instagram now. My user name is t.seymone. It’ll be in her link as she said, feel free to follow me. I’m transitioning my Instagram into my teacher resource so that you’ll get to see all the other things that I get to do in class. It’s been great being on the show. Thank you so much for having me.


Naomi Meredith  25:26

Yes, thank you so much, and I’ll chat with you soon.

1st-5th stem teacher

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

k-2 STEM planning

3 Hacks for K-2 STEM Planning [ep. 53]

3 Hacks for K-2 STEM Planning [ep.53]

k-2 STEM planning

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Episode Summary

Are you struggling with how to structure your STEM time for grades K-2? Well, these little friends in our STEM space can often have a lot of energy, but they also have a ton of creativity that they can bring into this environment. 

In today’s episode, I am sharing with you three hacks for K-2 STEM planning to help you make the most of your time with these little ones.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • 3 hacks for K-2 STEM planning
  • Examples of the types of materials I use with K-2
  • Examples of how I structure my time with K-2

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

Are you struggling with how to structure your STEM time for K-2? Well, these little friends in our STEM space can often have a lot of energy. They also have a ton of creativity that they can bring into this environment. Planning for K-2 is often one of my most favorite grade levels to plan for. I am going to be sharing with you three hacks to make the most of these lessons for these little ones. 


Naomi Meredith  00:40

I know that I have been starting these episodes with some announcements and things to keep your eye out for, but this time, my special announcement is going to come at the end. So make sure you listen through all the way and not miss out on this special thing. I am so excited and have been working behind the scenes for a while on this for you, so make sure to check that out, you definitely don’t want to miss it. I’ve mentioned this before in past episodes, but when I was in college, I was really thinking about getting my degree in early childhood education. I’ve always loved children. I’ve been around children my whole life as the oldest of five, and babysitting all the kids in the neighborhood. I am just so used to being around little kids. So I was really close to getting my degree in early childhood education. I was working at a preschool at the time, but ultimately, I went with elementary education. I’m so glad that I did. But I still have a special warm spot in my heart for those younger students. Before I became a K through five STEM teacher, I taught second grade for two years, and then third grade for four years. All those student teaching experiences, those were also in the primary space. So I definitely have a love for this, and I can always see that potential of what those littles are able to do. I feel like they have even more creativity sometimes than the older students. So let me share with you three hacks that I use to manage these little guys in my classroom, and really go forward with the planning. So I think you’re really going to enjoy this one because I know a lot of you struggle with younger kids. There is no shame in that whatsoever. I think that this is going to really help you out with your planning. So let’s jump in. 


Naomi Meredith  02:58

One of the biggest game changers that has been for me with my younger students is how I structure my week. The way that I plan for my little ones, mainly K and first, but sometimes second grade, at the beginning of the year, is a lot different than how I plan for my third through fifth graders. This is super, super important. I was planning the same way for everybody, but then I realized that wasn’t working out. So let me let you take a behind the scenes of how I actually structure my week when I’m making my plans for my younger students. Now, I see my same students, so I have K through five, and I see my same six classes for five days in a row. So you can modify this schedule that I’m going to explain to whatever works best for you. I know a lot of you actually see different kids every single day, which is a lot. But this structure can definitely work out for you as well. So I will switch up the order. So what I’m going to talk about in a second, I might not always start with the same thing on the day one. It really just depends on what’s happening in the school, and with breaks and everything. But here is how I actually plan a unit for my younger students. So in general for all of my classes, I plan with a unit in mind. So there is a progression of learning for all of my students. If you want to take a peek at this, I actually have my FREE K through five STEM year long plan that you can access for free. It’ll be linked in the show notes or you can find it at Naomimeredith.com/year long plan. So I have this same theme. So if I’m doing 3D printing, everyone is doing 3D printing. If I am doing LEGO Education building kits, everyone is doing that. So that way you can actually see that progression of learning and it actually makes the planning a whole lot easier. So start with that. Of course you’re integrating the standards, so there are past episodes that I have as well to help you with the actual planning. So I’m just talking more about the structure of my week. So I have my overall theme, I have the standards that I want to attack, and then I have a special structure for these little ones. 


Naomi Meredith  05:17

For two or three days, depending on the project, I will do a mini Engineering Design Process project with the kids. I will go through all of the steps with the students, but it won’t stretch out for the full five days. We know that with the little ones their stamina is not as great as those bigger kids. In some ways, the bigger kids don’t have great stamina either when it comes to work time, but they can dive in deeper, and they have a lot more when it comes to their projects. So my projects for the younger kids still follow along the Engineering Design Process. But we will go through all of the steps a lot quicker. There is no rulebook that says you have to do a different thing every single day. I like to do that, but it doesn’t really always work out for the younger students. So we will go through the process really fast. Sometimes even the creation of the project is one day and that is plenty. So here’s how I go. Let’s say I’m starting off my week with this mini project. So day one would be to explore the question to gather research and to do a plan. Sometimes if we have enough time, depending on the class, I might even have them gather their materials, and hold on to that. So then the next day, day two of the project, we can jump right into the building, and they’re usually fine with one day of building. Then if we extend it one more day, day three, then students who still need to finish can finish their projects. This also gives them the opportunity to share, which often in my class is taking a picture or a video of their work and sharing that through Seesaw. 


Naomi Meredith  07:00

So they’re happy with this structure, and sometimes it’s even two days. So we might not get to the final share piece. By day two, they’re pretty much done with their projects, and then they can even take them home. So we don’t need a whole lot of time. It does take some careful planning and having all of those resources and things ready to go. But once you have it, and you have a project that works, it’s so nice, and you get it done a lot quicker. So let’s say our project in a five day week, is three days. Then the next two days, I like to do STEM stations that are still going along with that overall theme and standards. So let’s say for my project, let’s say for first grade, the beginning of the week, we were working on the 3D printing project, which is about animal babies and their adults and the traits that they have on their bodies that make them similar and different. So that would be that main standard. There’s one in the NGSS I can’t think of it off the top of my head, but that’s the 3D printing project that we do, not counting the printing time. Obviously, that takes more time, but the creation and the digital platform, we get that done. Then the next two days would be STEM stations that are related to that standard. So I like to plan my stations with the four letters of STEM, so science, technology, engineering and math station. So they will go through two stations a day. So that makes for and then we will even start off with a video that is related to the content. So it really is great where kids aren’t rushing through all four stations, but they can actually take their time, and it gives me time to explain them. 


Naomi Meredith  08:37

The second day I’m even able to re-explain them. There’s always those kids who say I already know, and I’m like, well, there’s kids in here who might have forgot, or they just showed up today. So I will do two days of STEM stations. Now if it’s a weird week, I might do one day and then there’s two stations, so then they can flip flop. So that doesn’t happen very often. But that’s just another structure that you can do as well. What’s also really great about STEM stations is that you’re not always doing whole group instruction all the time, for every single day with the little kids that can get really exhausting. They are way more independent than you think. Think about what they’re doing in their regular classrooms. More than likely they are doing station rotations with their teachers because they don’t teach in front of them all day every day. Maybe some do. But most of the time, they’re doing stations as well. So take what they’re doing in their regular classroom and put it into yours, it will work and the kids are really good at it. So be very clear with your expectations, and you’re going to have just like a sigh of relief. The kids love STEM stations, they asked for them all the time, and when we’re not doing them they actually get a little bit sad. So again, take some careful planning, but it is a lifesaver. So that would be five days. So if I did three days with a mini project, and then two days with STEM stations that would take up five days. However, I like to have a backup plan just in case if the project goes a lot faster, or if I need a sub plan in a pinch. So I always plan on the side a STEM and stories lesson that is related to the content. Again, it could be a fiction or nonfiction book, and they have a quick one day challenge that they can go through using Makerspace materials or even reusable things like blocks, LEGO bricks, or whatever you have. So it’s always good to have this on the side. Again, if you plan this all out, you can use it year after year, obviously, with some modifications, but then you are really creating things, a structure that kids are getting used to and looking forward to. 


Naomi Meredith  10:47

The next hack, when it comes to my K-2 planning is having low prep materials. There are a lot of reasons for this. This goes with the many projects is STEM station, STEM and stories, all the things that you’re planning, you want some low prep materials, and here is why. First of all, less materials means there is less to clean up. That is the biggest thing, you always want the kids to clean up on time. Well, if you have a 5 million things out, they’re not going to be able to clean it up in time, it’s just not going to happen. You always have the stragglers, and then the ones who are always cleaning up the most. So that’s not going to happen. So less materials, less cleanup time. Sometimes with things like if the kids are going to cut, glue, and color, I won’t even get all the materials at once. I’ll have kids get the buckets of crayons, and then they’ll color. Then maybe five minutes later, they can get the scissors and then five minutes after that, get the glue. Then slowly, we’ll put the crayons back, they’ve slowly put those scissors back and slowly put the glue back. So it’s a gradual release of the materials and a gradual release of putting them back. So less materials, the better. Along with that, when it comes to you and your instruction, if you have 5 million things going on, then it’s going to be a lot harder to explain. Also when in turn, it’s going to be harder for kids to remember what they’re supposed to do. So having maybe a maximum of five different materials that they’re going to be using at the time, that is easy to remember. It can be repeatable. So keep that in mind when you’re using the different materials. Also, with these low prep materials, think about how you can reuse things. This can include Makerspace items, and even blocks, bricks and all of those things. Sometimes when I have kids build something, they might use the items from my Makerspace. But they aren’t using tape, scissors or glue, they just get to use those things to build their creation for a one day challenge. For example, in Kindergarten, we were talking about shade structures. We did a one day challenge where students were building shade structures in the classroom and using flashlights as the sun. We use some blocks to help them build, and then I also pulled out some things like coffee filters, cupcake liners, paper plates, that they could build within their design. But then they couldn’t cut them or glue them. So I integrated those materials. Then we also put those back. So using less materials, but also any creative way can be really helpful when you’re planning for your younger students. 


Naomi Meredith  13:26

And finally, you might think I’m a little bit crazy on this one. But with those K-2 students integrate more technology. Yes, I said it. Now in my role, I have taught K through five throughout the whole week. But I’ve also done a lot of co-teaching with the teachers in my building as well. Those little ones can do a lot more than you think. It takes a lot more explicit instruction and a lot of strategies and all of that. I have a blog post that I’ll link in the show notes where I actually talk about how I structured teaching technology, specifically integrating it in the classroom. So we’ll link that for you. But integrate more than you think. They are really, really fast learners with whatever you do, they’re really fast. So they will catch on, and they are even more eager to help out each other. So it’s really good to integrate the technology, they want to use it, they’re excited to use it. So use it more in your classroom. It doesn’t always have to be engineering and building challenges, you can integrate more technology. Here are some ways that you can do that. So think about how you can use the same tool over and over again like k one and two, but you change out the content. One way that I do this is I love the Bee Bots more. I upgraded to the Blue Bots. Same little guys or code and go mice. You know how I feel about those, but using those robots with different grade levels, but we changed out the content. So I had first grade first and we were learning about things that you can see during the day and during the night. So using the Bee Bots, they were coding to different pictures of things that can be seen during the day, during the night, and both. Sometimes you can see the moon during the day and the night. So they use the Bee Bots for that challenge. Then I actually had kids take out the cards for me, I had mats that have a clear cover sheet, or you can laminate whatever works best or whatever you have. Then I had different cards for Kindergarten, same robots, but they were coding to different shade structures or coding to the sun, because we were talking about the sun in the shade. So really ask them because first grade had some background knowledge of how to use the robots from Kindergarten. But the whole challenge was completely different, the content was different. They were also adding more components to their codes, they were doing more multi-step codes instead of one thing at a time. So it’s also really good to help them have that progression of learning. Along with that, for that progression of learning, think about technology tools that have multiple pathways, and ways that can differentiate or get harder and harder. Another tool that I love using with the primary students are the Osmos. If you haven’t seen Osmos, these are super cool. These are specific for iPads or Kindles. When you purchase these, just make sure that you get the version that is applicable to the device you have. There are different versions, they have the same components, but it just fits the device and works with the device in the way that it should. So what’s really cool is you have your tablet, and there is an attachment that goes over the camera, the front facing camera. What it does is this attachment has a mirror, and it’s reading the manipulatives that come with the kit that the kids are using on the table. So with the corresponding app, let’s say it’s a numbers app where they have to combine dots to create the number on the screen, they have the little manipulatives. What it’s going to do is let’s say there’s a five, they have to get on the screen, they’re going to use the little chips, the little manipulatives on the table, they’re going to make a five, so add up all the dots. Then the attachment is going to read what they make with their hands and then send it back to the application. Then it’s going to self correct. So it’s going to let them know if it’s right or wrong. What’s awesome is these apps have so many different ways to differentiate. The kits are a little bit pricey, but they’re really sturdy, and there are many levels. So I can do the numbers game K-2, because there’s a lot of different things in math that they can learn. What’s also great too is yes, you can start them off at the same level. But once you get to know your kids more and their needs, you can differentiate for them within the app. So there’s some really cool ones, the ones off the top of my head, there’s a tangrams app, which is great for spatial awareness and problem solving. There’s a numbers app, which helps them with those different progressions of math learning. So counting with dots, I’m doing the subitizing. I’m probably saying those wrong, but you know what I’m talking about. So have the different progression of learning with math, and then it also moves into that numerical form. There’s also a coding kit and the coding one actually has three separate apps, which is super cool. I’ve been playing around with that one for the younger kids. There’s different ways to code with that. So definitely think about tools that have these differentiation options. Back to those Blue Bots, I upgraded to those specifically, because the kids can code without a screen. But then with the older kids, my second graders, they can actually code the robot using the tablet. So think about those multi-use tools and ways that you can use a progression of learning with that technology. Another thing for technology is thinking about tools that you can repeatedly use over and over again. Bonus points if this is a tool that they’re already using in your classroom. The one that I am thinking of that you guys probably know what I’m going to say is Seesaw. They get a lot of free publicity on here because I love them. I used it all the time when I was a classroom teacher and I use Seesaw K through five because it works for everybody. There’s great differentiation options for all learners. Anyway, the students in some classes use Seesaw as a way to show their learning with their homeroom teacher. So I might as well use it in STEM because the skills I might show them might be a little bit different than what their teachers are showing them. They might be learning things in their classroom that I don’t know yet. So vice versa, they’re using a tool that is repeatable, that they are familiar with, and then they can showcase their learning, of course and STEM. You’re going to do things that are different and that’s okay that is kind of the whole point of it also, but think about those tools that you can use over and over again. Maybe it is Google tools. If you have to for the littles you can definitely do that. I prefer Seesaw, but there are very similar things. Also, Epic Books is another great one when it comes to research. So think about those tools they might be familiar with, and then give it that STEM twist, because kids can definitely be successful with that. They’re just using it in a different way to showcase their learning. 


Naomi Meredith  20:18

As a recap, here are the three hacks for planning for your K-2 students that we talked about in this episode, and then we have the special announcement that I have for you. The first is to create a structure for your week. Next is think about having low prep materials. And finally, you might think I’m a little bit crazy on this one, but trust me, integrate more technology. Okay, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for, and I get so many questions about this. So I’m so excited to finally be sharing with you that the doors are finally open for my first ever live workshop, and it is a K-2 virtual planning workshop. So you get to spend two hours with me live and with some other STEM teachers around the world. We’re going to tackle that planning for K-2. I shared with you some great hacks, but we’re actually going to plan out a unit for one of the grade levels. I’m going to show you exactly how I plan for my students and give you the tools to be successful. You probably feel so confident and so good about planning for your older students, but when it comes to the little ones, it can definitely be overwhelming. But I’m going to be here for you where we can tackle this together. During those two hours, we’re going to plan some STEM stations, or mini projects and a STEM and stories that you can directly take back to your classroom, that is also standard space and encourages creativity and engagement with your students. Now, if you aren’t able to attend live, or if you are listening to this way off in the future, don’t worry, it will all be recorded. So you definitely can get access, rewatch it, and work at your own pace. The benefit of joining us live is you can ask me questions in real-time, and I can answer you. You can also interact with the other teachers who are going to be there. So I’m so excited about this live virtual workshop. It’s awesome. It’s a two-hour commitment, you get a certificate of completion when you’re finished, and then you get a whole bunch to take back in your classroom. So it’s very actionable. The key is workshop. So it’s not a sit and get kind of thing. It’s something that you definitely can benefit from. Don’t feel overwhelmed anymore. I’m here for you, I hear you. So this is definitely created for you to be successful so that you have this unit planned. But then, you can also apply this same model and strategy to all the other units for the rest of the school year. So this is definitely going to build that base for you. So all of this is going to be linked in the show notes for you to join in, whether it’s live or access the recorded version. I would love to have you be there. And definitely jump on and get your hands on this. The doors are open, and I can’t wait to see you there.

k-2 STEM planning

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

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What Does a K-6 STEM Teacher Do? with Kristin Kinner [ep.52]

What Does a K-6 STEM Teacher Do? with Kristin Kinner [ep.52]

stem teacher do

Check out the full episode on What Does a K-6 STEM Teacher Do? with Kristin Kinner:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

In today’s episode, I interview Kristin Kenner, who is a K through sixth STEM teacher who taught in a regular classroom for over 25 years. I know many of you will relate to Kristin’s experience since many of you were also in the classroom before your STEM role. Kristin and I were talking over the summer before her role in STEM, and she was super nervous and asking for advice.

I knew that the experience she already had would be so helpful in her STEM role. In this episode, Kristin shares her journey as a classroom teacher turned STEM teacher, how she’s received grants to purchase materials for her STEM classroom, lessons from my TpT shop that Kristin has implemented in her classroom, and much more!

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Kristin’s journey as a first-year STEM teacher
  • How she used grants to fund materials for her STEM classroom
  • Her process for getting approved for grants
  • STEM lessons from Naomi’s TpT shop that Kristin’s students enjoy

Meet Kristin Kinner:

Kristin Kinner is an elementary STEM teacher in her first year in STEM. She has taught for over 25 years in first, second, and fourth grades and has been a learning specialist and reading specialist in K-12. She currently inspires over 725 students to follow their passions in K-6 STEM. Kristin loves meeting and collaborating with other innovative educators and exploring new learning with her students.

Connect with Kristin:

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

In today’s episode, I am interviewing Kristin Kinner who is a K through five STEM teacher who taught in the regular classroom for over 25 years. I thought her experience was super relatable to many of you who are listening. Most of you were also in the classroom before this role, and I thought that this would be a perfect fit for a guest on this show. Kristin and I have connected over the years through different ways and platforms. More recently, the InnEdCO Conference, which is a local conference in Colorado that is all about innovation. So definitely recommend it if you want to take a trip to Colorado or you live in the area. It’s a really awesome conference. We were talking over the summer before her role in STEM, and she was super nervous and asking for advice. I knew that her experience that she already had would be so helpful in her STEM role, and you’re going to hear the passion in her voice. She loves teaching K through six STEM, and I’m sure a lot of you can relate to her story. Before teaching in K through six STEM she taught in first, second, and fourth grades, and was also a learning specialist and reading specialist in Kindergarten. She teaches over 725 students, which is a lot of kids. Kristin loves meeting and collaborating with other innovative educators and exploring new learning with her students. I am so excited for you to listen to this interview. She is so much fun, and I can’t wait for you to listen. 


Naomi Meredith  02:04

All right, Kristin. Well, thank you so much for being here today. I was so excited you said yes to me. We were emailing back and forth and like, “Hey, do you want to be on the podcast?” So I’m so glad you said yes to me because I think your experience and your background and teaching is super valuable. I think that your story of where you’ve been in education and how you got to STEM can really resonate with a lot of teachers here on the podcast. Because like me, and I’m pretty sure like you, we just kind of got thrown into it with a passion that we had. So if you wouldn’t mind telling us more about yourself and your teaching background and how you became a STEM teacher.


Kristin Kinner  02:41

Well, Hi, Naomi. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. As you know, I’m an elementary to STEM teacher. This is my first year in STEM. I’ve taught for over 25 years in first, second, and fourth grades mostly. I’ve been a learning specialist and a reading specialist, so I have a background in special education. Currently I inspire over 725 students to follow their passion in STEM. I love meeting and collaborating with other innovative educators and just exploring new learning with my students.


Naomi Meredith  03:16

You have a lot of kids? 


Kristin Kinner  03:18

Yes. 


Naomi Meredith  03:20

Wait, did you say sixth grade you have or is it just K through five?


Kristin Kinner  03:24

It’s K through six, and then we have a discovery program at my school, which has four self contained GT classrooms. So I have those classes as well. So I teach teach eight classes a day. 


Naomi Meredith  03:40

Wait, how does your schedule work with eight classes? I thought six was a lot. I have six. How does your schedule work?


Kristin Kinner  03:47

So I start in the morning and I teach sixth, fifth and fourth. Then I have lunch and we have two buildings. So then I take my stuff over to the primary building and I teach K-3. Then I teach the discovery class at the very end. Yeah, it’s busy.


Naomi Meredith  04:06

Do you have two separate classrooms then, or are you teaching in their classrooms?


Kristin Kinner  04:11

I do. I have two separate rooms. I have an innovative lab at the intermediate building and I have a STEM lab that’s particularly primary in a primary building.


Naomi Meredith  04:22

I did not know this. I need to go visit your school. I did not know you did that. That’s a lot.


Kristin Kinner  04:33

It’s a lot of fun though. And it keeps me moving and motivated.


Naomi Meredith  04:37

So what has been your favorite part about teaching STEM? Because you you have so much background in teaching and you’re, I mean, I don’t know when you can retire by but you could be like “Hey, see ya,” but now look at you. You’re in STEM. So what have been your favorite parts about it so far?


Kristin Kinner  04:52

I really love robotics. So we’re doing a lot of robotics right now. Bee bots are being used with Kindergarten and first grade. Then I’ve got Dash robots for second, third and fourth. Then we’re going to get into using the Vex Go Systems with fifth and sixth grade as the year progresses. Yeah, so it should be fun.


Naomi Meredith  05:16

Yeah. Have you even opened up those Vex Go Sustems? Yeah, I haven’t used those, but I’ve heard really good things about them.


Kristin Kinner  05:22

I have opened them up. I haven’t done a lot with them. I’m gonna do some exploring over Christmas break to see what we can find.


Naomi Meredith  05:34

Yeah, cuz are those the kits where they actually build the robot? Or am I thinking of something else?


Kristin Kinner  05:39

Yeah, they will actually build the robot. Yes.


Naomi Meredith  05:44

That is so cool. Wow. So you have that many classes a day. So you love robotics? Has there been anything that like surprised you? Because I know coming from the classroom is a lot. You and I were talking at the InnEdCO conference, and you’re so sweet. Like, I’m so nervous. I don’t know where it to start. I’m like, “Well, you’ve been a teacher for a long time. I think it’ll be okay.” But has there been anything that has surprised you where you’re like, “Whoa, I did not expect this?”


Kristin Kinner  06:16

No, I think the hardest thing is going from teaching primary for so long to working with some of the older students. But a lot of the things that we’ve done, I tried to plan something that kind of fits with each grade level. So sixth grade, we use the global goals. They created PSAs to kind of talk about what they might do to work toward a global goal. Fifth grade, we have hydroponic gardens. So they are doing a whole hydroponic gardening unit, that’s just for their grade. With fourth grade, I’m working with otter cares and doing Project HEART, which is a service or a philanthropy unit. So they’re going to be creating some service projects that we carry out through STEM, just to keep some things going for each of them.


Naomi Meredith  07:08

Yeah, so how often do you see the kids then? Because those sound like really big projects? I haven’t heard of global goal or otter cares. Do you do these projects in five days? Or is this something that would carry on for multiple rotations? How does that work with your timing?


Kristin Kinner  07:26

So I see each class for a full week, Monday through Friday, and we have a four week rotation. So we have four classes on each grade level. So I repeat my lessons four times with sixth grade, the global goals, or the 2030 sustainable goals. So like, no poverty, free freshwater, those kinds of things. All people have proper nutrition. They worked on researching, and that took, like, a week. Then the second week was putting together what they wanted to put on their public service announcement. Some of them did Google Slides, because they were familiar with that. But once we introduced the green screen and actually recording using iPads, they were able to record. A lot of them recorded, and had and made videos and stuff.


Naomi Meredith  08:22

So is this more like project based learning? Or do you use the Engineering Design Process or kind of both? Because that’s super interesting. I haven’t talked to anybody who’s done long term projects like this, that I’m so curious how you set that all up.


Kristin Kinner  08:38

I can share it with you. It was just basically I had like a doc that they filled in, and I shared through Google Classroom. That kind of was the framework for what I wanted them to find out, and for what I wanted them to share in their public service announcement, and they just went from there. They’re on my website, so you can see what some of the kids did.


Naomi Meredith  09:04

Oh, yeah, we’ll definitely have to link that. That is super interesting. It’s funny you say that. I’m with you on having a harder time with the older kids. I mean, I think your lessons are really good. But a lot of people are the opposite of you. A lot of people struggle with the little kids more than the older kids. So are there any strategies you would say for the little kids that people should try? Because a lot of people I get have a lot of questions about little kids.


Kristin Kinner  09:30

I tried to connect the younger ones to stories. So a lot of the k one might be more just build oriented and creating that way. This week, we did your lesson on 10 on the sled, so they had to decide what they wanted to build for their sleds and came up with some really cute ideas. Those books are like kind of the vehicle to launch a lot of my lessons. First, second, and third, we did Tacky the Penguin. It was Tacky in the Winter Games. So they had to do a direct drawing of the penguin. Then they had some clothing that they had to either design or there was a copy page they could color them in. But I took it a step further with the second and third graders. They had to create a coding path for Dash Robot to dress Tacky, say to put the pieces all around the coding mat and collect them using the robot. So kind of integrating a few different things.


Naomi Meredith  10:40

 Oh, that’s a great way to start. I know I’ve talked about this in past episodes, like if you can integrate books, that is the best way to get started, or are just busy times of year engaging younger students, and even for sub plans. I don’t know if you’ve left books for subs, that’s something I definitely have done. It’s super, like everybody loves reading. But a lot of us in elementary love reading books anyway, we have a lot of our favorites. So you might as well integrate that. Do you ever do like STEM stations with the little kids or other types of projects?


Kristin Kinner  11:15

Yes, I do. I have some trays that are set up just for that purpose. So I have like six different trays. So when projects are finished, there’s different things that they can go to. If I’m ever out, I usually leave STEM stations for a set, because the directions are there on the card, and the materials are ready to go. So I just put them on the table and read the directions and have the kids go like four to a table. Then you rotate after 15 minutes, and it keeps it easy for the sub and it keeps the kids engaged.


Naomi Meredith  11:51

Yeah, what types of things are on the trays? I’m trying to visualize these trays, I’m so curious.


Kristin Kinner  11:58

One is just a whole collection of pipe cleaners. They have to make a net to collect a ball, which is like a paper ball. One, I have Legos set up in this large tray that my daughter made. She’s a student at CU. I put LEGO platforms in there. They’re building a whole hockey station in there. So kids can work on it continually. Then others can add to it. One of them is using Keva blocks to build a bridge. So there’s different supplies. I just take out the container and put them on tables and explain what’s what. Tthen they’re easy to pack up to.


Naomi Meredith  12:39

Oh, yeah, I love that organization. I’m thinking too like, what about the space, but you said you had two buildings you go to? So that’s nice too where you have, oh, here’s more of the primary supplies in the secondary because having those, you need a lot of stuff. I feel like for the little kids, I don’t know, that’s something that I have found. When I came into my classroom, I didn’t have any of that building stuff. So I asked classroom teachers if they have any extra math manipulatives. I used most of my budget that year on just simple building supplies that you mentioned. But I know that you had to gather, well, I mean, you had to gather a lot of supplies for two rooms. How did you get all the supplies for your classroom? Because that’s a lot of stuff you need.


Kristin Kinner  13:21

So I was very lucky to step into a well equipped, innovative lab and that was at the intermediate building. So fourth, fifth and sixth. We had a lot of tools for the students to learn and a lot of the consumables. I just set up another room in the primary building, which was a little more challenging, but I write a lot of grants and get a lot of funding from different companies. So all robotics last year, we’re funded through different brands. Yeah.


Naomi Meredith  13:53

Wait, so do you write directly to the companies? This isn’t Donors Choose? How do you do this? This is amazing.


Kristin Kinner  14:00

So there are some companies like one grant I got was through Toshiba America. It was $1,000, and I received funding for six Dash robots, and some other supplies for the robotics like chargers and stuff, so I can charge six of them at a time. Yeah. Then this year, I got a grant through Westera, and they funded the lights for my hydroponic gardens. Because like a true engineer, designer, I had gardens, but I didn’t have grow lights. So I was like, Oh, they’re not growing. I had to come up with a way to problem solve and come up with lights because nothing was growing. This whole project was flopping. So I wrote a grant and Westera and my principal both bought a set of lights for our gardens. So now they’re growing like there’s no tomorrow.


Naomi Meredith  15:01

Oh yeah, well, this is like kind of off topic, but it’s similar. So when my family moved out of Colorado, like you take stuff to Goodwill, so my mom’s like, take all this stuff to Goodwill. I’m like, okay, so she loaded all this stuff in my trunk. While I’m unloading it, all the people at Goodwill were laughing at me. Then I realized she put a bunch of grow lights and growing things in my trunk. So I really set somebody up for their home garden, whatever that may be like in Colorado, you guys can connect the dots. But yeah, you definitely need the lights for sure. Growing herbs, like legit herbs, my mom, like grew herbs on my counter, like, that’s it not illegal. But um, yeah, that’s a good point. So how did you find these grants? I’ve never heard of this. I’m thinking of Darrell. Darrell, if you’re listening, you’ve asked me about grants. So you need to listen to this part. How did you find these?


Kristin Kinner  15:53

I searched for educational grants, we can search by state. I found Toshiba that way. That was actually the second grant that I’d gotten from Toshiba. I’d got one a few years back. It was mostly for a collaboration station just for like furniture, and some other games and tools in my first grade class probably about six or seven years ago. I still have the table. But yeah, it’s just a nice way, especially if you need some of those, like, the Keva blocks. I have zoob tubes and extra Legos, if you need any of that stuff. Just a small grant, aside from Donors Choose, they will fund a few different things.


Naomi Meredith  16:35

Oh, yeah, that’s great advice because I know that can be really inhibiting in our position, like you have found where you need stuff. I mean, you can definitely teach them with having cardboard, and a Makerspace. But I feel like Makerspace is just one unit, which if that’s all you can afford, it’s better than nothing to be honest. But we really want to provide these experiences for kids and buying high quality materials that are going to last more than one time. So having the Bee Bots or Blue Bots are definitely worth your investment. More so than those Code and Go Mice do the same thing. They’re not very good. But that is so smart. I did not know you could do that. That’s really helpful for people. If you guys don’t know where to get started, I have a free guide for just a spreadsheet of different things that you can buy with different budgets. So that can help with your pricing and has a lot of the stuff that you mentioned Kristin with all of those really hands on materials, because you need you need all that cool stuff. I mean, it really helps like their imaginations and thinking of the world in new ways. So you said that the 10 on the sled was super fun with your kids? Has there been anything else of mine that you’ve used in your classroom that you’ve seen success with your kids?


Kristin Kinner  17:53

I’ve used a lot of your resources. 


Naomi Meredith  17:56

Oh, okay. I did not know this. 


Kristin Kinner  17:58

I did. Your marble maze, and the kids went bananas. They loved it. One kid made a really tiny one that was probably like four inches by four inches. They use cocktail straws around the edge. We even made marbles out of pieces of clay with one of the groups.


Naomi Meredith  18:18

Oh, yeah.


Kristin Kinner  18:21

Yeah, they did some amazing things. We did your spider pulley in October and they got to keep the spider ring.


Naomi Meredith  18:30

Oh, look at you go. I don’t. I take them back. I think I said that on my episode too. I’m like, I don’t let them keep them. Well, you are the nice STEM teacher, and I’m like give them back.


Kristin Kinner  18:40

That’s because I ordered a bag of about 500 of them. I’m not gonna get rid of these in just a year. What else did we do? Oh, I used your cardboard maker tree. We created a wish tree. We did a wish tree for all the specials teachers. We put little ornaments on them, and we asked for some donations like markers, glue sticks, masking tape and scotch tape because I do not have a lot of those at all.


Naomi Meredith  19:11

Yeah, I run out of masking tape like it’s water. Yeah, I ran into that so is such a cute idea. Have you gotten any donations? We are recording this in December. Have you gotten anything yet?


Kristin Kinner  19:23

I have I got some markers, and I think there’s a few more that’ll be coming in through the week. But just very excited.


Naomi Meredith  19:32

Oh I love that and you could definitely do that. You can make it like a palm tree I don’t know for summertime or if you have parent teacher conferences. What a cute idea on how to use that one. I didn’t even think of that.


Kristin Kinner  19:47

We did you’re all about me brick build. I did it with six during the first week of school and they loved that. They keep asking for more Legos and I think just picking the colors and giving them a little, you know, they could pick what they wanted. But I don’t know, it was kind of cool. It really worked out well. I used your Rube Goldberg lesson to show how matter travels through the ecosystem. 


Naomi Meredith  20:12

Oh, how did that one go? I’m always curious to see how that one goes in classrooms.


Kristin Kinner  20:17

So that was with fifth grade, and it was toward the beginning of the year. They kind of wanted to get it really involved with different animals. I was like, you only need three, have three, one to try to three. Like and if you want more than that, once you get to three, let’s add on. But they enjoyed that. We saw some videos about different Rube Goldberg systems. There are some cool ones out there and gave them some inspiration. Then they created some amazing things. Yeah, I use a lot of your stuff. 


Naomi Meredith  20:49

Oh, you’re so sweet. You sent me pictures of the posters. I didn’t know like, I don’t know. I’m like, Hey, I’m doing this in my own classroom. But the Rube Goldberg one is so fun. I don’t know if you showed this. But kids like that’s in Home Alone. I’m all Oh, yeah. Is it? Right? Yeah, like go watch it on Disney plus, like, it’s just a good movie. I’m like, also a little sad. He’s by himself. When we showed the part the part I could find on YouTube, where he was setting up the trap where it’s actually really dangerous if you rewatch it, but then we didn’t watch it actually go it like being launched, like hurting the robbers. I don’t know if we can show that at school. But he’s like pouring water on the steps. Then he has like, the fan with the feathers are like, Oh my gosh, but yeah, we were showing that when I did that with fifth grade, too. They were talking about him like, oh, yeah, let’s watch that part. So super fun. I don’t know if you had this happen. A lot of the kids didn’t know what a Rube Goldberg machine was. But they kind of knew the concept. Did you see that too? When you were teaching it.


Naomi Meredith  20:49

A little bit. But again, I shared videos to kind of say this is who Rube Goldberg was, this is why it was famous, and this is what we’re doing to try to find a difficult way to solve an easy problem was kind of how. 


Naomi Meredith  22:15

Yeah, totally. Again, it’s so fun. I have told kids like you should make them at home over break and send me videos. It’s a great at home activity on a cold day.


Kristin Kinner  22:30

It’s a good idea.


Naomi Meredith  22:32

Oh, yeah, I’m not patient enough for that. But I would love to see the kids videos.


Kristin Kinner  22:38

I would bet they do it too.


Naomi Meredith  22:40

Oh, yeah, I think so. So if there’s anyone else, I didn’t send you this question before so I’m getting you on the fly. But if there is a teacher, and who is thinking about a similar role as you, they’ve been teaching for a while, do you have any advice for them? Because I know you love your position. You’re just so sweet and modest about it. But I know you love it. 


Kristin Kinner  23:04

I do love it.


Naomi Meredith  23:05

Yeah, I know you. So what would you say to someone who is like you even six months ago, what would you say?


Kristin Kinner  23:13

I would say try them out in your classroom, like have your current kids pick a day, maybe it’s like, fun Friday, but pick a day and have like different challenges where the kids are trying them out because you know your audience and you can tell them, hey, I want you to test the sound I try. I want to try something new with you. I used to do that with my first graders all the time. Now I have all those first graders because they were in my class over the past five years. So now they’re in second through sixth. So I’ve got like robotics experts in the classroom, and I’ve got kids in every room that kind of know, what are some things that we did together. So they can now be the experts and lead others. That’s kind of what you want to do. You want to find what they’re good at, and you want them to feel like “Hey, I know this stuff.” So I’m gonna help you out and feel good about what they’re doing.


Naomi Meredith  24:08

I think that’s such good advice. I think that’s so good because it is a lot teaching all the kids in the school. But I know like some teachers who listen to this are interested in STEM who are a classroom teacher, they don’t know where to get started, or maybe they only teach a few grade levels. So I think that’s really good to hear because it can be a lot at first. Like it is, it’s a lot and even for me still starting new units it can be like super overwhelming sometimes but I think that’s really good just to jump in. You’re showing them to you have a growth mindset, and that’s like really important in STEM like you’re demonstrating what a growth mindset is because I think sometimes as teachers we don’t always do that. But I think that’s really good advice to give them. So you mentioned you had a website, are there any other? So how can teachers connect with you and get in touch if they have more questions?


Kristin Kinner  25:07

So I am on Twitter @kinnerswinners and I have a WordPress blog, but it’s been a while since I’ve added it’s called Innovationinfirst.wordpress.com. Then I’m trying to get better at Instagram, and that’s where I’m k_kinnerteaches


Naomi Meredith  25:34

Yeah, I think they’ll love that and definitely reach out. I think you have a lot of great nuggets that teachers can connect with and reach out to you and just fill up their STEM network. So I appreciate your time. Thank you for using my lessons. I had no idea that I never know I don’t know who gets the things all the time. So it’s just pretty cool, like hearing what you’re doing in your classroom and how you’re inspiring kids. I can’t wait to talk to you at the end of the school year and just like how it all worked out for you.


Kristin Kinner  26:06

Oh, you’re awesome. Yeah, your lessons are amazing. They’re pretty clear, pretty straightforward and really easy to follow. So that’s what I really liked about them.


Naomi Meredith  26:16

Good. Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you.


Kristin Kinner  26:21

Anytime! I will see you soon.

stem teacher do

 

Related Episodes/Blog Posts:

 

Connect with Naomi Meredith:

 

More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

teach growth mindset activities

How Do You Teach Growth Mindset Activities? [ep.51]

How Do You Teach Growth Mindset Activities? [ep.51]

teach growth mindset activities

Check out the full episode on How Do You Teach Growth Mindset Activities?:  

 

Subscribe to the podcast HERE on your favorite podcasting platform.

Have a STEM question? Leave a voice message for the podcast!

Episode Summary

How do you teach growth mindset activities in STEM? In my opinion, a growth mindset is one of those soft skills that you should definitely be teaching in your STEM classroom.

In this episode, we’ll be going over strategies on how to teach growth mindset activities in your STEM space and how it can also be a natural fit into what you are already teaching.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn  3 ways to teach growth mindset activities in your STEM classroom:

  • Isolated lessons 
  • Embedded lessons
  • Model a growth mindset for your students

Resources Mentioned:

Some items are linked to my Amazon Affiliate account. When you purchase through my link, there is no added cost to you, but I receive a small commission in return.

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

How do you teach growth mindset activities in STEM? A growth mindset is one of those big buzzwords in the education space. But in my opinion, a growth mindset is one of those soft skills that you should definitely be teaching and STEM. In this episode, we’ll be going over strategies of ways to teach a growth mindset in your STEM space and how it can also be a natural fit into what you are already teaching. 


Naomi Meredith  00:59

Before we get started, here are a couple of fun announcements for you. We are really close to launching the first virtual workshop for 2023. This is going to be a great time to learn and connect with other STEM teachers and meet with me, and I definitely don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity. So make sure to join the waitlist so you can be the first one to know when it’s open. You can grab that at Naomimeredith.com/workshopwaitlist. Also, we have been on the air with this podcast for almost six months now. I appreciate all of the reviews that have been shared. But I know it’s been a little bit of time, and you’ve been a longtime listener, maybe you haven’t said anything yet. So I would love for you to take a few moments to write a review, I would love to start reading those on the podcast and setting up a fun giveaway for those of you who write a review. So if you wouldn’t mind going into Apple podcasts, let me know how this podcast has been helpful for you. Then I’m going to think of something fun that you can earn in return if I read yours on an episode, so I definitely would appreciate it. Thank you so much. Let’s jump into this episode. 


Naomi Meredith  02:21

If you’re a classroom teacher before jumping into your K through five STEM room like me, a growth mindset is probably not a new concept. I know I have been talking about this for years, especially when I was teaching third grade. We really focused on it, especially during the back-to-school time. Now you and your STEM room are probably really thinking about a growth mindset and how important it is to teach in your lessons. What I have found really interesting in the STEM space is that the growth mindset is really tested in different ways compared to the regular classroom, especially when kids are doing things that are hands-on and creative. I feel like it can be such a vulnerable situation when you’re being creative. Because you just really hope that your ideas work. When they don’t, it’s really hard to really persevere through them. This is a life skill for a lot of adults as well. So how do you teach this concept of a growth mindset in your STEM space when you typically only see kids for a short amount of time? Well, I have some different strategies for you, where we’re really going to talk about how you can isolate these lessons, but also how you can embed them in your practice because, most likely, the classroom teachers are talking about it as well. You might need to attack the growth mindset in a different way. But also make it actionable and meaningful for the short amount of time you have with kids. So let’s jump in. 


Naomi Meredith  03:56

When teaching a growth mindset, you can really focus on having isolated lessons. What I mean by this is you are teaching a growth mindset skill, and you are isolating it. That is what your whole lesson is about. These are really great to sprinkle in throughout the school year during back-to-school after long breaks. Because, of course, a growth mindset is going to change as kids are getting older. Also, it depends on the type of project that they are going to be doing. So having isolated lessons can be very helpful. This can also help build that community in your classroom. Since you don’t see them typically every day, this is a great chance to get to know the kids in a different way and really set up those expectations and processes when they’re in your classroom. One way you can have an isolated lesson is to have a STEM and stories lesson. There are a variety of books out there. You can do this in a couple of ways. Maybe we start off with a book where the character is demonstrating or not demonstrating a growth mindset and a variety of situations. Or maybe you have a story that is one of your favorites, but the related activity is demonstrating a growth mindset. For example, one book that I absolutely love where a character is demonstrating a growth mindset is After the Fall by Dan Santat. This book is so cute where the main character Humpty Dumpty, well, it’s after he fell off the wall, and he’s really trying to decide if he should get back up on that wall again. So I’m not going to give away the ending. But this is a great book to use in your classroom. Now maybe you have a fun STEM story, maybe it’s about building things that you would like to read to your students. But then the related activity is where students have to practice a growth mindset skill, I recommend listening to my first guest interview that I actually had on this podcast with my friend Jen Sevy, where she talked about engineering design sprints, which not only are you practicing the Engineering Design Process, but all of these challenges tested kids’ ways of how to demonstrate a growth mindset. So this can be a great opportunity as well. 


Naomi Meredith  06:17

Another way that you can have an isolated growth mindset activity in your classroom is to have a specific growth mindset skill that students are going to be focusing on, and the lesson is directly related to it. So very similar to the STEM and stories, but this time, you might not have a book. One of the ways that I do this is a growth mindset I have in my classroom is that we are creators with technology, not just consumers. So we will talk about what that means to be a creator, maybe if we are working on something with 3D printing, we’re not just going to be looking in the library of 3D prints and printing off random things. But we are really practicing creating something out of nothing and being proud of the work that we are doing. So this is really helping students understand what that growth mindset means and how it’s going to be used in our lesson. Another growth mindset that I like to use in my classroom is that we are problem solvers, not problem makers. A way that I could connect this lesson with my students is by teaching them various specific ways of how they can troubleshoot most types of technology. I have some fun posters that are visual that you can hang up in your classroom, where it lists out these typical troubleshooting steps or have them individualized as well. Some of those things might be turning the device on and off, exiting out of tabs, restarting the device, those types of things that we really want students to be problem-solving with, this is a great opportunity to connect it with a growth mindset. 


Naomi Meredith  07:58

Now that you have those core lessons in place, those are things that I do mainly at the beginning of the year or when I am starting something brand new with students. But most of the time I do this second method, and it is embedding the growth mindset strategies, really when you’re embedding them and that they are naturally taking place in your classroom. This is where I feel like it’s the most authentic, and students really are understanding what it means to have a growth mindset in various situations. Think about how you can have a growth mindset as a core system in your classroom. For example, I use the system to ask three before me, you might have this happen, especially when it’s something new. And it even depends on the class that you have. Some are needier than others. But I really try to push students to ask three before me, I am more of the guide in the classroom. And I’m there to really handle the tough situations and facilitate the learning. But the kids in STEM are really quick learners, and more than likely, they’re very excited to help. This not only helps the students who are needing the help, but it’s also helping them advocate for themselves and use their words to learn how to speak with their peers and how to communicate the problems that they are having. But it’s also a great experience for the students who are helping with the troubleshooting. Because you’ve probably seen this, it’s oftentimes the kids who surprise you who have the knowledge and who are happy to help where they might not always have that role back in their regular classroom. Ask three before me is such a simple strategy, but it is so effective and still helpful in the STEM space and connecting it to a growth mindset. 


Naomi Meredith  09:44

Along with that, when I have students help each other, I tell them that they need to be the YouTube tutorial. So we talked about when I am helping other teachers with things, I typically am not the one who is typing in all of this stuff or plugging all of it in all of the time. But I really tried to have the teacher do it with me with my guidance because I’m not always going to be there in their classroom. It’s also a great experience for the teacher to learn how to do that. Likewise, we want our students to be able to problem solve and be able to do things. So when I have kids help each other, especially when it comes to technical issues, I have them talk through that issue and help the student who’s having problems instead of going in and typing it in and fixing it all by themselves. This is helping again with that problem-solving. And again, having that growth mindset when it comes to problems with their project or technology. Another way that you can embed a growth mindset in your classroom is you can have a specific growth mindset theme for your unit, I have various specific growth mindset sayings that I use in my classroom, I’ll link a blog post that I wrote about this in detail in the show notes, I definitely recommend for you to check that out, because I have examples of how I teach every single one in my classroom. You can even print these up and hang them in your room. So when you are planning out your lessons, think about the type of growth mindset that you want students to demonstrate in their learning. I shared with you the example of 3D printing and how they are creators with technology and not just consumers. But think about the growth mindset you want them to demonstrate. And you can refer to this every single day throughout the week, or however long you have the kids, and really talk about what that means to demonstrate that growth mindset skill, you can go even further and have matching notes to send home and send a positive note home with the child where they could share with their family and how they demonstrated growth mindset. This is also really great, too, if you read this out loud in the class and talk about what that strategy was. Because this can also encourage students to really try that growth mindset skill. 


Naomi Meredith  12:00

Just like anything, a growth mindset can be really challenging, especially for a lot of kids and especially when they are trying new things in your classroom. It’s not all going to come naturally. And that’s okay. I will tell my students I wasn’t born knowing all of these STEM things. I wasn’t born knowing every single lesson I’ve had, I’ve had a growth mindset planning them. So when it comes to learning these things, in turn, we need to have a growth mindset. So these little notes home can really be encouraging for the kids. And also think about the growth mindset in a different way. From there, students also need role models in their lives. And that is a great opportunity for you to be modeling a growth mindset. So the third way to demonstrate and teach a growth mindset in your classroom I gave the example where I didn’t know what I was teaching. And I’m always constantly learning. But I tell my students that all the time, when we were doing podcasting with the fifth grade, they were creating a podcast about light pollution, again, a topic I also didn’t know about. And that’s a lesson in my shop as well. But we were talking about podcasting. And I was actually sharing with my students’ parts of my podcast as one of the examples. And how I’ve had a growth mindset to learn all the things to get this launched and to continue to have it going. So it was really cool for the students to see that they’re doing something that I do in my real life and how I’m able to connect with other teachers and people who are supportive of STEM education. So it was really neat for them to see that they were doing something that was real and that I have been through the process. And I am helping them through that. It’s it was very hard for them. But I was helping them through that based on the experiences that I had. So any way that you can tie in your own experiences and how you demonstrate a growth mindset. People love stories, kids love stories. So this is also a great way to connect with each other and be that model for them. Also, continue your learning as an educator, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed by just school in general, I completely get it. But if you’re able to read or listen to different professional development books, there are so many great ones out there that tie in with a growth mindset. This is going to keep opening up your mind and develop new ideas and not get stuck in your way. I read a lot, and I listened to a lot because I always want to make sure that I am up to date and really doing the best for my students, for your students, and for you as a teacher. 


Naomi Meredith  14:41

Some of my favorites when it comes to a growth mindset is, of course, Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck. Highly recommend starting there. Joe Boeler has a couple of books, and she has a new one. She has a new one called Limitless Mind and then also not too old but another one of my favorites, Mathematically Calm Mindset. Also, if you’re a business owner, if you just need a change with your books, I love the book, Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo. It’s not necessarily a STEM education book. But if you want to change it up, she has some good tidbits in there. So continue your professional development, if you can join a type of book club, that’s a great way where you can discuss with other teachers and connect. You can just continue to be encouraged and energized by each other. In turn, that will really apply to what you’re doing in your own classroom when talking about your professional development. Another way you can continue that is maybe even considering getting a STEM certificate or even a Master’s in STEM Education. I did not have either of these things when I got into my role. I teach in Colorado, and that wasn’t something that was required. You just have to have your degree in elementary education, which I do. But during COVID, I really thought this would be a great time for me to get a STEM certificate in conjunction with my STEM Masters. I learned so much, and I was really thinking about different topics I had never heard about before. That’s actually where the light pollution podcast lesson came from. Because that was something I had to research in one of my classes. So this is also, again, it’s a lot of work. But also you really open up your mind, gives you a growth mindset of new things. It’s just always great to be learning new things. If you’re interested in me doing a podcast episode more about my STEM certificate and Master’s, I am happy to do that. Just let me know. You can send me a DM or email me and let me know if that’s something that you would be interested in. Or you can even write a comment below if you’re watching the video version. If starting your master’s isn’t something that you have the time for yet, or the funds, or you’re still deciding if you want to stay in STEM, I have a course, STEM teacher 101, that you can do at your own pace. There are professional development credits that you can earn through that if you need something for recertification. So I am here to support you and all the ways of course with this podcast, we are here listening. But really, being that role model for your students and demonstrating a growth mindset is super important. We can tell kids one thing growth mindset, blah, blah, blah, but you really understand it even more if you are demonstrating a growth mindset and you are willing to try new things. Kids can tell if you have a growth mindset or not. And they’re gonna feed off that energy either way. So if you’re not showing it or you’re not doing it in your own life, then why are you even teaching it?


Naomi Meredith  17:40

It’s just kind of a little hypocritical, in my opinion. So just a lot of different ways for you to continue to learn and grow. There are so many cool things happening in STEM education and things coming up. So definitely look into at least one of those ways. As a recap, here are some ways to teach growth mindset activities in your STEM classroom. First, you can have isolated lessons, and then it really moves into those embedded lessons. And finally, figure out how you can model a growth mindset and really be the change and example for your students. Growth Mindset. Well, it’s always a work in progress, but it’s super important for our kids and how they can demonstrate this not only in our STEM classrooms but beyond our classroom walls.

teach growth mindset activities

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

stem in the real world

Space, NASA & STEM in the Real World with Aaron Shepard [ep.50]

Space, NASA & STEM in the Real World with Aaron Shepard [ep.50]

stem in the real world

Check out the full episode on Space, NASA & STEM in the Real World with Aaron Shepard:  

 

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Episode Summary

I can’t believe we have made it to the 50th episode! We have a special guest on today’s episode to celebrate this special occasion.

Today I am chatting with Aaron Shepard, a software engineer at NASA Goddard. We had an awesome discussion about his journey and career, his passion for STEM, STEM in the real world, and how to get kids involved in STEM.

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • About Aaron Shepard’s role at NASA
  • How he went from pursuing a career in medicine to becoming a software engineer for NASA
  • His passion for STEM and how he gets kids interested in STEM

Meet Aaron Shepard:

Aaron Shepard first fell in love with science while watching astronauts blast off in the Space Shuttle. He dreamed of one day building cool technology while floating in a lab in space. Aaron was devastated to hear NASA announce the end of the Shuttle program during his freshman year of high school. Fearing that the space age was coming to an end, he decided to “grow up” and pursue a more realistic career.

After briefly attending medical school, Aaron decided to chase his childhood dream of working in the space industry. He graduated from Clemson University in 2022 and has since joined the Flight Dynamics team at NASA Goddard as a contractor (a.i. Solutions). Aaron currently develops orbital tracking procedures for the Roman Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2026.

Since changing career paths, Aaron has become an active contributor in the aerospace and science outreach communities. As a lifelong advocate for diversity and inclusion in STEM fields, Aaron has worked with thousands of students through outreach initiatives and public speaking.

Connect with Aaron:

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

I can’t believe that we have made it to the 50th episode of the elementary STEM coach podcast. When I first launched this podcast in July of 2022, I had no idea how this would make such a big impact in the elementary STEM community. Not only am I able to help teachers like you with your elementary STEM journey, but I’ve also been able to make some awesome connections with a lot of you and other people who are supportive of STEM education. Thank you so much for being here in this journey. And I look forward to even more episodes of this podcast, and how it grows from here. In turn, I have a special guest to celebrate this 50th episode. We have today, Aaron shepherd who is a software engineer at NASA Goddard. And we had an awesome discussion about his journey and to his career, his passion for STEM and also how to get kids involved. Aaron at first fell in love with science while watching astronauts blast off in the space shuttle, he dreamed of one day building cool technology while floating in a lab in space. later down the road after briefly attending medical school, Aaron decided to chase his childhood dream of working in the space industry. He graduated from Clemson University in 2022, and has since joined the flight dynamics team at NASA Goddard. Aaron currently develops orbital tracking procedures for the Roman Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2026. This is such a fun episode, and I know that you’re going to enjoy it. We had a great time chatting. And again, thank you so much for being here. 


Naomi Meredith  02:16

All right, Aaron, well, thank you so much for being here today. I’m so excited to chat with you. I have met your wife through some fun business connections and that she was telling me what you do with kids. And I was like, “Okay, I have to have your husband, Aaron here on this podcast.” I didn’t have you tell me too much before we started recording, because I want to hear it as it comes. I’m so excited to chat with you today. I know the other teachers and the STEM community are going to learn a lot from you. So if you wouldn’t mind introducing yourself, your journey to NASA and then what inspired you with the role that you have?


Aaron Shepard  02:56

Okay, yes, thank you so much for having me on. My name is Aaron and I am currently working as a software engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In particular, I am on the flight dynamics team for the Roman Space Telescope, which is supposed to be the successor to the Hubble and will hopefully launch, fingers crossed, in 2026. My job is to make sure that it doesn’t get lost in space on the way out. Yeah, if it gets lost, it’s like junk. Yeah, it’s kind of kind of my fault if it gets lost. Well, yeah, my journey to NASA has been quite an interesting one. I grew up like every other kid. I was like, “Oh, I want to go to space. I want to be an astronaut. I want to make all the cool stuff that we send out to Mars and Pluto or wherever.” I guess where my story gets interesting is that I grew up in the early 2000s. That was right around the time when they cancelled the shuttle program. So when they cancelled the shuttle program, I kind of bought into all the hype. Everybody in the room was like, Oh, they’re canceling the shuttle program. There’s not going to be a NASA like space is not the industry. It’s not going to exist in 5 to 10 years. I remember when that announcement came out in school, because like I was just like staring at the tile like, “Oh my god, what am I going to do with my life?” 


Naomi Meredith  04:21

Oh, no.


Aaron Shepard  04:24

So I kind of lived a whole another life before like space and NASA. I have a lot of doctors in my family. So I was like, “Okay, I’m gonna go do that.” So I graduated, went to college, did my MCAT, got into med school, and then I remember like, literally being in med school, like in a class, and I was like, not paying attention at all. I was watching one of the announcements. The European Space Agency had just landed on a comet. They were sending back like pictures and videos. I was like, I want to do that with my life. So needless to say, that was a sort of a very long, very introspective journey dropped out of med school. That was fun to explain to my parents. My mom was like, “What!?” Don’t worry about I got it. I’m gonna take care of it. It’s all good. I dropped out of med school, went back, did another degree in engineering. I was in school for six years. Then while I was in school, I just, I got really lucky. I had people to help me. I had people that believed in me. So I started. I worked at NASA for three summers while I was a student. Then after I graduated, about six months after I graduated, no, not even six months after I graduated. I graduated in May, and then I got my job in like mid-June. So that’s great. Yeah. I didn’t, I did not think that it was going to work out the way it did. But that’s the journey. I guess that it was one of those things that was meant to be, so now I’m living the dream and doing what five year old me wanted to do.


Naomi Meredith  05:58

I was just going to say like little Aaron would be so proud of you.


Aaron Shepard  06:04

Yeah, little Aaron. Little Aaron is looking at big Aaron, like, all right, you’re, you’re pretty cool. Yeah, it’s, honestly, to be a part of the space program, and to hopefully, be a part of something that goes up is one of, I think, the greatest honors in my professional life because not too many people can say that they’ve done that. So I’m really just, it’s, it’s not anything that I take for granted. Let’s put it like that.


Naomi Meredith  06:33

Oh, yeah, it’s so amazing like that. It’s just a lot of work and it’s a lot of collaboration. All your hard work has definitely paid off. It’s just a slow go to. It’s not that instant gratification to I mean, you said 2026. So all of this work, and you’re just hoping that it will work. Like that’s the ultimate STEM project right there. So I’m hoping and 2026 I’ll keep my eyes out for your guys’s project. I love space. I never wanted to be an astronaut but I’m very interested in space. I actually just finished a space unit with my K through five kids. So we talked about Earth and space and lots of different ways. Fourth grade, we’re talking about space junk, we were talking about light pollution in fifth grade. But I’m just so fascinated by it. We have a solar system hanging up and the kids are super into it. It’s just so cool. Like, who knows, maybe one of them or a few of them are little Aaron’s and they tell me they want to work for NASA or be an astronaut. I’m like, Hey, you can do anything. We need you. We need you. So I just I’m so excited to get into just more of what you do. So when it comes to NASA, what does a typical day look like for you?


Aaron Shepard  07:47

So what’s interesting is that I’m actually working remote. So the typical day looks like I wake up. Usually I try to be up around eight o’clock, and I try to clock in around 830 or nine. NASA is a very team oriented organization. So I’m in a lot of meetings. I would say, I have a meeting or two just about every day, Monday through Thursday. Then it just depends on what phase of the project we’re in. So I work again with software. So I could be writing new procedures, I could be debugging and troubleshooting old procedures, or, right now, we’re in a documentation phase. So I’m writing a document, I’m writing the documentation for all of the programs to explain, oh, this is how you run them. So that way anybody can look at them and be like, Oh, I just need to press this button and that button. What these programs will do is the idea is that they’ll pull in tracking data. Long story short, when we’re putting the telescope in the same place that James Webb is in. So at that Lagrangian point. That means we can see it from Earth constantly. We have something called the Deep Space Network. So we have stations in California, Spain, Japan and Australia. They’re all over the globe. At one point, any of those stations can see the telescope, because again, the globe is spinning. So what we’re doing is we’re looking at as the telescope is flying overhead of the station, it’s pinging where it is to get its location, and then we’re running programs to predict its orbit and where it might go and the next. We can do anything from three days to two years.


Naomi Meredith  09:40

Oh, oh, that’s a huge span.


Aaron Shepard  09:45

Yeah, so obviously, like as you go out further, it gets a little bit more inaccurate, but it’s just to give us an idea. One thing that I wrote that was really cool is when we launch it out, it’ll be within range of a network of tracking satellites that we have. So I wrote the procedure to tell the tracking satellites where to look, as the telescope launches out so that we can guess where it’s going to be. If something happens at launch, because of course, I’m gonna watch the launch, but if something happens within the first few days, I’m gonna be like, Oh.


Naomi Meredith  10:24

Like, well, it’s a team effort, guys. We’re team-oriented.


Aaron Shepard  10:28

Exactly, yeah. But again, my day can look like a bunch of different things, and then occasionally actually get to go up to visit the center for testing or for tours. I got to actually see the telescope being built in the cleanroom. That’s, like, really cool. It’s, it’s massive. It’s, yeah, it’s probably like 3045 feet tall. Like, it’s just, it’s big.


Naomi Meredith  10:52

Wow. That’s so cool. And like with your experience, too, like, would you say? Like, looking back as a kid? Did you have experiences? Do you think that helped you do what you do today? Like you, your adult life for sure. But you’re doing so much of collaborating, problem-solving and critical thinking in your daily life, do you think you had a lot of those experiences as a kid that helped you?


Aaron Shepard  11:17

Oh, yeah, from a soft skill perspective. So like collaborating and problem-solving? Definitely. I come from a really big family, so you got to learn how to say what you need. You got to learn how to work with other people and get along. Yeah,


Naomi Meredith  11:31

Yeah, I’m the oldest of five. So I totally get it.


Aaron Shepard  11:34

Yeah. So definitely that and then from just technical skills, like I was always, I was always a big nerd. So I was playing video games all the time, I was working on computers, it was, you know, building stuff, breaking stuff, all that. So I really think that, if anything, it just gives you a mindset of analytical problem-solving. Like I definitely, because I have broken so many things. I just understand the process of navigating problems. 


Naomi Meredith  12:02

Yeah, no, that’s good. I think you and it doesn’t always work the first time and I’m sure you see that in your job, like you have a lot of iteration and you’re going back and you have to make sure like, it’s so different doing anything like a program or whatever, but having to write it out explicitly for somebody else, I’m sure you see, oh, ooh, that’s not good. Or that will make sense to somebody else. So that’s so important to like, I see that with kids. And I think that’s so important, why we have STEM because kids will get frustrated. It doesn’t work the same, though first time, like, hey, it doesn’t always work the first time doesn’t even work the 20th time. And that’s how life goes. And they get sad that their project isn’t the perfect thing by Friday. And like, that’s how it goes. Let’s wag your hair. So definitely, when you mentioned those soft skills, I totally agree with you. That’s really what we’re teaching. You probably see that too when you work with kids, how important those soft skills are. So I’m so glad you mentioned that and you’re using it in your real job. So yes, yeah. So speaking of what you’ve done, your wife tells me you went to Jamaica recently. I don’t know how that all went down. I know it involves STEM. So what were you doing out in Jamaica?


Aaron Shepard  13:15

So I was part of a program called Passage. It’s a really, really cool program. It was started by one of my friends. And his mission is to fly different classrooms, supplies, and science supplies to various countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. So he was in the Bahamas. He was in Jamaica. I think he’s currently in Colombia right now. And then he goes to like Chile, Argentina. Whoa. And it’s a big thing. Like, the program is involved with local governments. So while we were there in Jamaica, we actually met and had like 45 minutes to an hour conversation with the minister, the Ministry of Education, like when I got to meet the Minister of Education. And we had an incredible conversation about how we could leverage modern technology to solidify Jamaica’s place as a tech hub in the Caribbean. We got to meet with the US Embassy, we got to meet with multiple universities, some high schools, I think, the aeronautical Institute of the West Indies, like it was a pretty cool experience.


Naomi Meredith  14:26

Oh, did you know you’re going to meet all these people when you went down there? Like oh, oh, hello. Oh, hello. Oh, okay. You’re high up there.


Aaron Shepard  14:35

Yeah, we knew I think everybody knew, but nobody realized how much gravity or weight this project would have.  On the Jamaica leg, these were real conversations. Like this was an Oh, like, that’s a really cool policy that we can implement later kind of thing. It wasn’t. At first it was at first it was pleasantries and you know, hi I’m so and so and this is so and so but as time went on like it, it really evolved and after we walked outside that meeting with the minister of education we were like this is a thing. And even now like the, the government of Colombia is like interested the Government of Colombia is promoting the project. And so this is this is gonna carry weight. And hopefully this idea for my friend will be something that propagates throughout the years. So I’m really excited to see what that is going to evolve into. And hopefully, I’m excited to continue being a part of it. Because, again, it was so much fun. We did meetings, we did workshops, I got to surround myself, I like to do a lot of robotics workshops with the kids and get them all like, excited and yellowing. And so it’s just such good energy. I really enjoyed that trip. And it’s part of for me, it’s why I do what I do. Like at the end of the day, I chose this for a reason. And it’s because it’s it’s to inspire and to plant trees whose shade I will probably never see, but that’s okay.


Naomi Meredith  16:16

How do the kids respond seeing these types of technologies? Is it often their first time or how do they react? Like what kind of robots do you do with that? And that’s a lot of questions I just asked you.


Aaron Shepard  16:28

Oh, yeah. So in general, so outside of the technology that I do, for example, while we were in Jamaica, we did stargazing events. And the last few nights have been great, because it’s been a full moon. There’s been Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, like so much to see. And for a lot of people on the island, that was the first time ever looking through a telescope. So watching that was just,


Naomi Meredith  16:51

oh, that’s cool. I just got chills. That’s amazing.


Aaron Shepard  16:57

Yeah, it’s, um, and again, like, you don’t really think about it until you see it because it’s like, this is a telescope. I’ve got to I’ve, you know, these are things that are normal to you. But when you realize that it’s the first time for somebody else, and you’re watching, oh my gosh, like they can see like the moons of Jupiter and the clouds and the wings on Saturn and people are. It’s a very powerful thing to witness.


Naomi Meredith  17:23

I’ve never seen that. So I think I would have the same reaction.


Aaron Shepard  17:28

Oh, yeah. It’s actually the first time I looked at Jupiter, I saw the bright red spot. I was like, oh, it’s like a NASA thing. Like, that’s, I guess they’re like, I didn’t even like, you see the pictures of it. But it’s like, oh, like, there it is.


Naomi Meredith  17:42

Oh, that’s cool. Oh, my gosh, I can I can only imagine, especially with kids to, like they want to I mean, without so many things they see on the screen. Like, that’s amazing. You see in real life. So was it just like that the whole time with the workshops to just interacting with all of the supplies? Did you just see that same sort of excitement?


Aaron Shepard  18:01

Yes, yes. Usually, when I, I do a lot of robotics work, because the robots are just awesome. They, and in particular, I do. I call them like my telekinetic mind control robots. I have these headsets, they can pick up like how you’re thinking like it’s not it’s very broad. It’s not like they can’t realize that you’re thinking cat. But it can measure if you’re really concentrated or if you feel relaxed. And so then I have those headsets mapped to the robot. And so you can drive the robot thinking one way, and you can send it in one direction then you can send it back and the other ones and like usually when I see that kids are like, the look is always like and then when they do it, they’re just like, what’s


Naomi Meredith  18:54

Oh my gosh, your face right now people can see your face that’s so funny. They’re just like, “No way!” I would be too. So what does the robot do if you’re confused, it just goes in circles.


Aaron Shepard  19:04

They just said it’ll stop. It’ll like go, it’ll like go one way than the other. Like, it’s actually like, if you’ve seen Star Wars, it’s good. Like Jedi Mind Training. I got to really think about this. It’s such a cool experience. And so this is something that I’ve been toying with for years. And so I’ve been demoing it, probably about six years now. And like I’ve done it, done a whole bunch of kids always love it. Every year. I’m like, should I do something else? And then people are like, no, no, just keep doing that. I’m like, alright, that’s what you want. I mean, okay, we can do it.


Naomi Meredith  19:36

Yeah, we don’t do that in class. I don’t know I’ve heard of any STEM teachers. If I’m wrong, please message me but I haven’t heard of any STEM teachers doing that in class. I don’t think we have the robots and the capability for it. We probably don’t have the funding to be honest.


Aaron Shepard  19:51

Well, it’s not a terribly expensive thing. I mean, I can probably about maybe $300-400 total for everything. Okay, that’s actually really good. Yeah, so I mean, and then I built my own versions for on like, probably like 250 300, like parts everything. But then a lot of it was me like, figuring things out and like having to go to the manufacturer and be like, Hey, what’s your? What’s your Bluetooth protocol? Like, what? How do I interface like I am people are very nice. Usually, if you ask and you tell them what you’re doing, they’re like, oh, yeah, sure, that’s how you do it. But yeah, it’s some, my philosophy was STEM has always been to, I’m going for the, I’m going for the wow factor, like, I’m going for the thing that makes you go, I didn’t even know this was possible. And then the wow factor for me because like, the reality of what we do, and our field is that, you know, it’s like, you sat through math class, it’s boring. Sometimes you’re like, huh, so if you go for the wow factor, and this is what I tell kids, it’s like, it’s it’s the payoff for doing all of the work. So if you sit through, you pay attention to, like, the math and the physics and all that other stuff, where you’re like, Yeah, I don’t really care. That knowledge allows you to make really cool stuff. Like a flame thrower that I might be building.


Naomi Meredith  21:12

Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh, I mean, I’m sure that kids love you. And that’s a great point, too. That’s a great way to say I was talking to some kids at school the other day, and it made me so sad. And like, what are your favorite subject? I don’t know how you’re talking about what your favorite subjects were. I don’t really ask that question. But anyway, they’re saying that science is boring. Not STEM, not my class. Okay. That’s a whole other thing. They didn’t say my class. But science. I’m like, that makes me so sad to hear that and they are in second grade. And they’re all Yeah, it’s boring. We just watch videos on my own. No, no, no, no, no. So yeah, I definitely agree with that wow factor and exposing kids to a lot of different things. All of my units are completely different because you never know what a kid is going to connect with. Some kids might like robots some might like building with Makerspace some my like my STEM survival camp units, so you never know what they’re going to connect with. So I totally agree, the more obscure the better. Because there’s usually no background knowledge, which is great, because they have they have to learn to Yeah, so I love how that’s a great philosophy like the wow factor. I love that. Do you? So you do that mind control robots with kids? Do you do other things in the community to help support some education?


Aaron Shepard  22:31

So for the past few years, it’s been, I’ve done like different talks, I usually will do anything from like, overview of robotics. I run a TikTok account. And so I’ll do crazy things on that. One video that like went really really well. I don’t know if you remember the Oscars. But you know, when Will Smith did the slap thing? Oh, yeah. I like broke it down. Like got out the physics calculated, like how, how hard it was. And it was one of those things where like, it went viral. My mom called me she was like, did you do that? I was like, yes, Ma, she was like, That’s hilarious. And so many comments, because I do try to go through my comments. So many comments were like, wow, like, I didn’t even know, like, I’m gonna pay attention in class now. Like, this is awesome. And that’s what I’m going for.


Naomi Meredith  23:23

That’s so okay, I’m gonna have to find that. And then I’m gonna link it in the show notes for this episode, and then we’ll watch it.


Aaron Shepard  23:31

Yeah, I’ll definitely I’ll send it to you. But I’m always looking for anything that I do. Like, sometimes it’s hands-on. Sometimes it’s just talking, I’ve done everything from talks on robots to talk like I’ve done talks on like all the African American astronauts, it just really depends. But my bigger kind of overarching goal, like the thing that is pushing why I do, what I do, is that I want to promote science, literacy and science appreciation. So I’m not an artist, but I have an appreciation for art, I can look at it, I can understand the basic themes. Like, I’m sure you’ve done the same thing where like, you’ve gone to the museum, and you can be like, Oh, well, this is, uh, this is impressionism, or this is a representation of the blah, blah, blah, that happen so and so time ago, but it just helps to shape a broader mind. And that was really like, I really noticed that during the pandemic, when we were not a scientifically literate society, and we paid for it. So that’s when I was like, okay, like, like, let’s, let’s kind of personalize science. Let’s make it something that people are at least familiar with. I’m not saying that every kid has to be a scientist, but every kid should be able to look at science and be like, okay, and have a profound respect for it.


Naomi Meredith  24:48

Oh, absolutely. All of my STEM lessons actually start with the science concepts and then weave in everything else because that’s just how you like what we talked about. We’re exploring the world in different ways, and it’s super important. written. And yeah, this is just part of just you being a human. So that’s really great. And that’s funny too about the art that I was just talking about this with my fiancee this morning. He teaches high school Spanish, so completely different. And he was he’s teaching about art right now and Spanish. And this is so horrible. I was like, Why do you even teach that? And I even really liked that comment, but he said exactly what you were saying. Like just to be a more well rounded and you know, and he’s like because I’ve taught you you know what a Botero is and what it’s showing. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s true. So I probably shouldn’t have said that wasn’t very nice to me. But it was 5 am in the morning, so I wasn’t very happy.


Aaron Shepard  25:44

Yeah, that’s, yeah, I think so. All of Alexis’ teacher friends, for instance, but one year, you know, back, especially when I was young, and I just like a little bit more, you know, I have a little bit more spunk to me. And I would just kind of, I hadn’t really been broken in yet. I don’t know what we were talking about. But I think I got upset or something. And I was like, so what, you teachers get summers off anyway? Like, why are you complaining? Yeah, She had whipped around so fast. And I was like, I shouldn’t have said,


Naomi Meredith  26:18

like, yeah, yeah, you know what? I’ll, yeah, that’s a whole other that’s a whole podcast in itself.


Aaron Shepard  26:23

Oh, those are fighting words. I quickly realized that that was just like, oh, like, if you could have seen the look on her face, I was like, I’m scared.


Naomi Meredith  26:35

That’s pretty funny. So sweet. Well, we know what not to say to teachers. But do you have any advice for kids or teachers that could be separate or the same to help encourage them to help dream big, whether it isn’t STEM, you have great philosophies in STEM in general, and I hope people reach out to you, but what advice do you have?


Aaron Shepard  26:58

This just comes from my own personal philosophy, I am a big-picture, then-details kind of dude. And so whenever I’m like trying to teach something, or like when it comes to the subject of teaching STEM, I’m always thinking about the applications. Because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re really in it for. I don’t really care about the Pythagorean theorem, just for the sake of it. I mean, there are some people that do, and that’s great. And they make great mathematicians. And yeah, I understand that if I know Pythagorean theorem, then I can, you know, write this control policy for my spider robot because, guess what, it makes a big triangle. And so I can model it that way. You know, I may not necessarily, I don’t really care about differential equations for the sake of differential equations. But if I’m modeling a spacecraft that’s coming into the atmosphere, and it’s got to break and land, otherwise, you lose this billion dollar probe, then all of a sudden, my interest in my investment is hiked up a little bit more. So I’m always like, start with the end, and then build out from there. When I am teaching STEM, when I think about teaching STEM, I’m always focused on the applications first because that’s what creates the investment. And that’s what makes it stick to people or stick with people.


Naomi Meredith  28:15

I think that’s really great advice. And just that we’re not doing arts and crafts all day that there is that real world application. And even if it even that, if the application is simple, thinking about a five-year-old, that’s gonna look way different than with a high school teacher, but all kids can learn now they’re all capable. There are applications to everything that we’re doing and everything we’re teaching, but there’s so much in STEM. And I think just how STEM education is evolving in the elementary space, just taking it to the next level, having it be rooted in science and math and engineering concepts where we’re not just playing with Legos today. Or we’re we all just building with blocks? Like there’s a purpose behind there’s so much opportunity and just a bigger picture as to what we’re doing. So I think that’s really good advice coming from someone who works at NASA, and you apply these skills that are really good to hear. That’s something definitely, as teachers, especially in the STEM space, should be doing so. Yours. I could talk to you all day, and you can get Alexis back on No, just kidding. No, but where it gets teachers to find and connect with you. You have a bunch of places they can reach out to.


Aaron Shepard  29:25

Ah, yeah, all my handles are the same. @Spacecadetshep, that’s Instagram, Twitter, and TicTok. I don’t know if I’m going to stay on Twitter too much longer, but that’s another conversation in and of itself. But yes, I try to make myself pretty available. And again, my thing is, my big thing in STEM with teachers with students is applications and then collaboration like at the end of the day, like this is a science is it is a collaborative thing. So as I think the image of like the lone dude in his garage, first of all, that’s not that’s inaccurate for numerous reasons. One, it doesn’t have to be a dude, it can be, it can be a woman, it, you know, scientists can look so many ways but then too it’s a very like group oriented collaborative project. And so again, I’m just about connecting and building the community, and just even being a conduit to other people in the community or, like, the passage program where like, they’re literally some of the best and brightest people in the business of STEM and science communication. And so just being able to bridge all that together is that’s my MO.


Naomi Meredith  30:43

I love it is super inspiring, and I appreciate you doing what you’re doing and supporting STEM and just helping just bring that to light. And we need more people like you out there. Aaron. Thank you so much for being here today. We appreciate I know other teachers gonna love hearing from Euro. There are so many great, I was taking notes the whole time. So thank you so much again for your time, and we’ll chat soon. Thank you.


Aaron Shepard  31:10

Yes, thank you for having me. It was it’s always so much fun to do things like this. And yes, I I have enjoyed every second of it. And I just love talking STEM. I love the education part of it. The technical part. Love it all. Like it’s so incredible.


Naomi Meredith  31:27

Same here. I could do it all day, man. I pay to pretty much do so I got it. Oh, thank you again.


Aaron Shepard  31:34

Yes, thank you.

stem in the real world

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!

integrating Seesaw

Integrating Seesaw and the Engineering Design Process [ep.49]

Integrating Seesaw and the Engineering Design Process [ep.49]

integrating Seesaw

Check out the full episode on Integrating Seesaw and the Engineering Design Process:  

 

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Episode Summary

I am a huge fan of Seesaw and teaching with the Engineering Design Process. So naturally, I found a way to merge the two together with my everyday teaching in the STEM classroom. 

Today’s episode is from an online summit I did in the past at one of the Seesaw Connect Online Conferences. 

In today’s episode, I am breaking down different ways that I like to integrate Seesaw when teaching with the Engineering Design Process and how to make it work for K-5. 

 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • How I integrate Seesaw when teaching the Engineering Design Process
  • How to adapt these lessons for K-5
  • Examples of activities that integrate Seesaw with the Engineering Design Process that my students completed 

Resources Mentioned:

Episode Transcript: 

Naomi Meredith  00:00

You probably already know by now that I am a huge fan of Seesaw and teaching with the Engineering Design Process. So naturally I found a way to merge the two together with my everyday teaching and the STEM classroom. While the audio from this episode has never been heard before on this podcast, this presentation is from an online summit I did in the past at one of the Seesaw Connect Online Conferences. I’ll be breaking down different ways that I like to integrate Seesaw when teaching with the Engineering Design Process, and how to make it work for K through five. Let’s jump right in. 


Naomi Meredith  00:36

We have the Engineering Design Process, which is standards that we have to teach. Then we have Seesaw, which is this amazing tool that we know works well for our students. How in the world can we connect the two together? I am Naomi Meredith, a former classroom teacher turned K through five STEM teacher. I am here to show you just that, including how we can integrate Seesaw with the Engineering Design Process to showcase student learning and really show off their creativity. So let’s dive into this course and have a great time together. First, we’re going to learn about what is the Engineering Design Process, and it’s not just for STEM classrooms. This will be very helpful, especially if you are a classroom teacher too. We’re also going to see ways that we can integrate the Engineering Design Process with Seesaw. Three, we’re going to look at some student examples. I have pulled together things from primary students and also the intermediate students I’ve had in my classrooms. So you could see the age range and ability levels in that way, and for some useful supplies and resources that you can take away and implement in your classroom. 


Naomi Meredith  02:18

First, let’s build some background knowledge on what is the Engineering Design Process. It is a real process that engineers use to ask questions, find solutions, and iterate ideas. Iterate means to test your solution, make some changes, and then test and make changes. So that process happens a lot. So why in the world should we teach this? It’s this big, scary world, our students aren’t engineers, well, actually, they can take on that role. They are in the Next Generation Science Standards for elementary. So Kindergarten through second grade have the same Engineering Design Process standards, and they can be applied to any of the other science standards that you have as well. So it’s a great way to solve those problems. When you’re looking at the Engineering Design Process standards, you don’t have to teach them for every single unit. So that’s a whole other lesson that we could go into. But you really want to think about the standards where there is a problem that students need to solve. It is different than the scientific method, and the Engineering Design Process isn’t replacing the scientific method. So think about it like this, we have scientists who are testing solutions to see if they work, they’re doing experiments, and they’re using different variables to test those solutions. Engineering Design Process is a little bit different because we’re asking a question, and then we’re building to solve a problem. Yes, that can be hands on building. But as you get more into it, it can involve other things like electrical engineering, or computer engineering. So it’s not just that I’m building engineering that we typically think of, but that is definitely a great start. 


Naomi Meredith  03:58

So when you’re looking at those Next Generation Science Standards, again, look at those standards see what would make the most sense with the scientific method work or the Engineering Design Process. So for this session, we’re focusing on Engineering Design Process and examples for those. The great thing about this is through this process, as students get used to it, as you as a teacher are used to teaching it, it does promote creative problem solving. So there are multiple solutions to the problem, which is amazing. It’s hard to get used to at first because everybody’s ideas are going to look different and unique. That is the amazing part because that is how inventions get started. So definitely something to dive into. It’s actually really fun once you start using it in your classroom. When integrating the Engineering Design Process, Seesaw makes it so easy with the tools they already have built into the platform. So when you are planning your lessons and if you’re already familiar with Seesaw, you know that those tools are available and you can link the two together. So when you see the examples that I share, I have those tools in mind as I am lesson planning. Now, if you are new to Seesaw, I’m not gonna go over what all the tools do, just a quick overview. So just make sure that you check out Seesaw’s website, they have some great tutorials for you to use when you’re getting started. Also, if you’re familiar with everything, definitely check those out as a great refresher. I’ve used Seesaw as a classroom teacher. So I’ve seen the value of what it was with my 24 students, and now as a K through five STEM teacher. I also see how amazing it is with all the kids in the school. So this can definitely be done with all ages. 


Naomi Meredith  05:39

Now, of course, we have the green add button. So when you click on that, as a teacher or a student, there’s all these tools that are available. So we have photos, kids can take pictures of their work, students can draw their own drawings and draw on top of things. They also have the option to record a video within the platform, which is very helpful. So they’re not doing any external uploading. But you can do that as an option as well. And then, of course, they can type a note to respond to things and add a link. So adding in those tools right away are very, very meaningful. And then we also have the Activity button, that light bulb. So depending on the time you have creating activities ahead of time that go along with your lesson, and students respond on top of the pages that you send them is also great as well, because they can keep track of their thinking throughout the week. So often, I will have a Engineering Design Process notebook I’ll send to their activities. And then we will go through that as the days go on. Instead of me printing something, it’s more interactive. 


Naomi Meredith  06:38

With this Seesaw tools available, I’ve included some resources in here to help you with the planning process, and as you brainstorm some ideas. So the first document is that lesson plan document more like a brainstorm, of course, we’d like to type out our lessons a lot of us but this is just a great way to get ideas out there and think through how a lesson would work with the Engineering Design Process. So of course, to start off with the unit that you’re thinking about, and the main standards that you’re looking for, I typically start with the Next Generation Science Standards. So yes, the Engineering Design Process is a Next Generation Science Standards. But I look at the other science standards to see if there are problems that we can solve that all of them work again for the Engineering Design Process. So I look at the one that I really want to assess. And of course, I integrate the other content areas as well. So how are students going to be reading informational texts? How are they going to be writing about their thinking? How are they going to respond digitally, which are common core standards? What math standards? Am I working on Mathematical Practices, so I list all of those there, those are all woven in any materials that I need. And those usually I pop in at the end once I think about those materials that might be needed. And then I go through each of the steps. So you’ll see that there’s little question stems, it’ll help you think through that. 


Naomi Meredith  08:00

The second one is a poster that I created and have in my classroom, which you will be twins with me. And it’s just each of the steps and how I combined some of them. So you notice that experiment and prove are together on the same step. Because when you think about it with kids, you’re always experimenting, you’re always improving. So I don’t have them as separate steps, which you might see in other posters, because that is a step that goes back and forth the whole time. It’s simultaneous. So you’ll notice this little icon to trigger things with step you’re on with kids maybe even have a little clip, and you can clip on which step that you are at, or even kids have their own poster. And they can clip where they’re at as well. Of course, you go back and forth through the stages. So don’t think oh, we already imagined we’re not going to do imagining again, you always can go back to those stages. So I hope that you find these resources helpful while you are navigating this standard and making meaningful lessons. This is probably your most favorite part is how have students actually use seesaw to enhance the Engineering Design Process? Are there student examples? Can it be done? The short answer is yes. And I will show you those different examples of how students have tackled this in many different ways. Now the first stage of the Engineering Design Process is that you ask a question when I first started writing questions, I used to write them can you build blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so when I was thinking about it, can you can you is a yes or no response. 


Naomi Meredith  09:38

Can you build this? Yes or no? Maybe, and so wasn’t really open-ended and it really closed off the thinking of the challenge. Now students didn’t really notice that at first, some of the older students did with the wording, but it really closed off the experience. So when you are writing questions, write them instead by using how can and that really opens up the possibilities. Because you’re not teaching a cooking lesson, you’re not teaching an arts and crafts, it shouldn’t all look the same. It should look different because you’re igniting that creativity. So think about that questioning. Also, when writing questions, there are lots of ways to do this. Depending on your time, you might actually want to provide the question. There was a point when I was teaching STEM for only three days of the week. And so we really didn’t have the time to develop a question together. Wow. So I would provide that open ended question that we’re trying to solve. Now, depending on your time classroom, teachers, you can integrate this throughout the day, which is amazing. You could develop the question together so you can provide How can and then maybe the topic, and then you guys think about the problem you’re trying to solve? Sometimes with those integrated units, you might even have a question that kids have been thinking about already things that have popped up. So this could lead into an engineering design challenge. 


Naomi Meredith  11:03

So it can bring that challenge level up more. Now if you’re thinking about differentiation, you could write two part questions for students who need more of a challenge. The way I teach the imagining stage in the Engineering Design Process for primary and intermediate students, is fairly similar, but with a variety of resources. I will often pre research the topics, again to save time, and students have a lot of choice within the resources that I provide them. So we’ll do some imagine just to help build that background, and they understand the problem even further. I’ll provide images that are from real life. So a great resource is Unsplash and their high quality photos. So for one of our challenges, we were learning about boats, and so I provided different images of boats to give the that inspiration. I also will use things like podcasts with students, there’s some great ones like brains on tumble science are some great ones to build some background, lots of videos, little video clips, and they might explain the science concept or maybe take kids to the place that we are learning about. Also get epic epic books have a lot of great kid resources, I’ll create collections for students, and they can explore within that collection to help them research. So really guiding them toward that direction, giving them that choice. I also want to make sure to hold students accountable for their learning nothing crazy. So you can see that these response sheets are very similar, there’s just two different ways to respond. So they might be able to respond by writing and seesaw makes it easy with the typing tool. They can also respond by recording their voice, so that’s a lot easier for them. And then they can also draw their thinking. So drawing and labeling their thinking you is seeing those drawing tools, or they might draw on a separate piece of paper, take a picture and insert it into that box. You notice there’s QR codes and you obviously can’t scan a QR code on the iPad that you’re using. This might be something that I print out these are actually videos linked to YouTube at my school they are YouTube is blocked, so will actually watch a video as a class, respond to that video, watch the other video as a class and respond to that video. So using those outside resources to fill that background to build understanding to know why they’re solving this problem and what is going on. And just giving them those opportunities to explore things that are at their level. So this can be of course again everything can be differentiated based on the needs of your students and the things that you have available. 


Naomi Meredith  11:03

So it can be as guided or as open-ended as you want, when it comes to that questioning part. Now, like I said, I typically will write the questions ahead of time just for time, I see them a very limited time during the month. And so we will dive more into the other stages. So on the left, we have the fishing pole challenge, how can you create a fishing pole to help catch the fish? This is the challenge that I did with my first graders. And then on the right we have the build a shelter challenge, how can you create a shelter that will withstand different types of weather? Now, they seem very similar. They have that how can and they’re more open ended. But there is a big difference when you’re writing for primary and you’re writing for second secondary students or those intermediate students in elementary. So typically, what I have found be helpful with those younger students is that you have a one part questions. So yes, their creations will have lots of different things in them, but they’re answering one question. For the older students. This is a two part question, can they create a shelter? And can that shelter withstand types of weather we have three types of weather they’re trying to withstand. So there’s two things that they have to answer and focus on. 


Naomi Meredith  14:54

Planning is so important at any stage when you’re doing a project, and the planning doesn’t have to be super intense. So if you’re thinking about how much time that you have planning can be quick, it doesn’t always have to be drawing. So I’m going to show you drawing examples. But if you are super pressed for time, I’ve done this before in a class, I’ve done a 45 minute session with the Engineering Design Process with younger students. And so far part of the plan I showed the students the materials that they’ll be using, and then with their partner, they were talking about the five that they wanted to use. And that was their plan. So they were thinking about it ahead of time. So it can be as involved as you would like. Now the great part about this planning stage in the Engineering Design Process is I relate this a lot to the writing process. And so this is a time to really think about your ideas, you might not do exactly what you draw or talk about. But it’s a way to get your brain thinking of lots of different ways. This example here is a student, one in Seesaw sent them this planning sheet. And the wonderful thing about the drawing tool is that it’s endless colors. My first week teaching Stan I had somebody eat crayons, the kids were crying because we wouldn’t share the crayons, you stuffed him in his mouth. And then you split them all back in the bucket. So nobody could have crayons. So that doesn’t have to happen with the Seesaw drawing tools. So this is super great. Ahead of time you notice on the side, the materials that we’re going to use, I actually put on there real pictures of the things and the labels. Sometimes the kids, it depends on how you can make it you could make the labels movable with the pictures. And so there’s some ways that you can do that. And students can actually move and label the things that they have drawn. Or you can leave it stagnant like this. And students can draw lines to what they are showing. So this will help especially the younger students to make sure that they are using everything that is provided, are you just thinking of a way that it can be used, not required to use all the materials, but just ways that they can add more details to their plans. 


Naomi Meredith  18:34

For older students, depending on the unit, my first few units I typically do, we do focus a lot on the planning stage. And so this was an example of how a project we were doing of designing a hiking backpack. And so students actually drew their designs on a piece of paper just with the devices that we have, it wasn’t as easy to draw on the actual device. So planning on paper is a okay, that’s why you have the picture taking tool in Seaside and you can upload it that way, I would really wanted students to focus on the different parts of their designs. And trust me, I did not draw this I can’t draw. Mine looks like the other one the the Kindergarten example. So students were drawing their plans, they were labeling their designs and the purpose of those plans, I wanted them to also think about multiple views of their designs. Now I should have put it on here. This plan actually came to life and that student built it out pretty similar to what they had decided on which was pretty amazing. Now if you’re like well, we only have Chromebooks, we only have devices with a front facing camera. One little hack you can do is have students turn in the papers to you at the end of class or have them lay them all out on a table. So lay them side by side. And then if you just use your phone, download the Sisa app really quick. And then you go and take a picture for each of the students and add it to their account. It really takes about five minutes you can probably get a better picture than then holding it up to the camera all awkwardly and you see their eyeballs popping out, you know what I’m talking about. If you have your kids do that, I still do sometimes. But if you want a more clear picture like this, that’s a great hack. If you want to be the kid’s favorite teacher at school, having to build some things that create stage of the Engineering Design Process is so much fun. And this is the stage that kids thrive for. And they love it. And you don’t need a whole lot of materials to get started. Once they have started their plan, they have something in mind, this is where the magic happens. For sure. 


Naomi Meredith  20:35

Now, there isn’t a whole lot in the create stage students might do, because they are obviously creating, but you can definitely use these as still as an asset to help them with their creating process. Now on the left is a final picture that a student uploaded into their seesaw journal. So that definitely can be something you can include of their final design. So it was protect the food challenge. So how can you create something that will help you protect the food when staying the night in nature, so there’s the little bear and that’s their invention, so they can’t get the popcorn. On the right, what I actually sent the students in seesaw is a strategy of building cardboard technique that they could have used to improve their design. So this is a video of when you download the slides and click this photo, it takes you to the video if you want to check it out. But it is an L brace technique. So it’s just the way to make cardboard stronger. And you notice on the left that student actually use that technique. So I don’t force students to use techniques that I teach. However, it’s just a strategy to help them improve. So that’s a great way that you can include videos. Now a tip for creating videos like this one, when it is a technique, I actually record without sound that way students can watch it over and over again, they don’t need headphones. And they’re just paying attention to the visual process of something being created. And this is also great, because there’s no language barriers, it’s all visual. And so they can watch this as many times as needed. For a project that involves robots, or even older students or things that have multi steps. Again, sending them those tips are very, very helpful. I’ve noticed that with the older students, there’s a whole lot of differences of as you get into the projects, and they are more used to the Engineering Design Process. 


Naomi Meredith  22:22

If you’ve used it a lot of times, they might, some students might be ready to move on to the Create stage when others are still needing to plan one more day. So if you have these teacher tips available, this will help kids be successful independent on their own. So this project is a Sphero project. And they’re creating with using Sphero. Sphero is that little ball robot. And so there are some tricky steps that just connecting the robot in general, it doesn’t even have to do with the designing part. But I include these tips. So if they are working ahead on their own, or if they are working in a group, and I’ve already shown the steps, or if a student is absent or even if you want to do this at home, they have these available in their seaside journal, and they can refer to it right away. So they don’t have to wait on me. They don’t have to take the picture themselves. Like what was that? Again, they can just look in their seaside journal, and it’s right there. On the left is a different video No, I did make this ahead of time I use Sphero for quite a few lessons. So if you know you’re going to use the tool many times, or if your partner teachers are going to use the same tool, if you make a video tutorial of those steps in detail and just kind of take some time, I will play that video as a whole class has my mini lesson. And then I also send it to kids and their seesaw journals so they can access that as well. This video does have my voice because they do need to hear what I am clicking on. But just a way that how you can really use video to enhance and you can be in more places than one during that creation process. So think about those things that students might need you personally make a video or send them pictures and then you can be in more places than once. Once students have created their design, they are ready to experiment and improve along the way. Now, like I said, with the resources, experimenting, improving will happen simultaneously. And so that might be a quick back and forth process, especially with the younger students, they immediately see if something’s going wrong, I need to fix it right away. So this is a great opportunity, especially if the projects are really messy or awkward. If it involves water. During this stage, you can have the support by walking around as a teacher, but also you might be the one who wants to film and take videos of the students putting their designs in action. This is an example of a boat when we were helping the gingerbread man travel across the river so if he thought a little more smart, he could have designed an invention so he didn’t get eaten which he didn’t want to get eaten me most Okay, so I was taking video of the kids testing their designs, and I didn’t want them to have an iPad around the water. So this worked out great. So if you see that top box, that black box in the corner, if you click on that, when you download the slides, you can see the little boat moving around. So it’s cute, you can hear their voices, it’s great for the parents to see also, they can get that perspective of a different type of learning that’s happening in your classroom, because, of course, you know, they’re going home and sharing this, but it’s cool for the parents to see it really quick. And you might actually take quicker videos than the kids. With older students. 


Naomi Meredith  25:36

Again, I will also go around and take videos, sometimes they’re better at being more independent at that stage. But again, if it’s super messy, I’ll do that stuff just to keep the devices safe. But with those older students, and they have those two part questions anyway with their designs, but I will give them a modification and testing checklist. And they will have this beforehand. So while they’re creating, they’re thinking about how they can improve anyway. And so this isn’t always a mystery to them. And sometimes they might even help me make that checklist and improve it and things that should be added, which is super awesome. And so for this one with a build a shelter challenge that we saw in another session is that they were building a shelter to withstand the elements. And so yes, they built a shelter but cannot withstand the elements. So before they actually tested their design, I have some guests if it would withstand and it’s okay if it were all yeses, but we are trying to make their designs even better. Now one of the stations was water as well, I just love using water, obviously, I did have students tickets picture before and a picture after. And then they could see how their design change or was made better. So you can see that the student didn’t have a covering. So did it withstand rain or snow, but then they added a covering and something on the bottom to make it more sturdy. So implementing all of those layers, which is great, I could print these out, of course, for students, and they could check it off, not a problem. But it’s just adding in that extra element to bring their creations to life and sharing their learning and interacting with their work in a way that they might not have had before. 


Naomi Meredith  27:18

The sharing part of the Engineering Design Process, you really don’t want to skip and especially when it involves that reflection piece. This could be when you’re thinking about planning your projects that you really focus in on a certain unit and have students share the and reflect on their designs. Because that reflection part is so important, how can they improve and get better. And also notice the things that really work well, when they’re working in a group when they’re testing out things. So this is always a continual process. So the Engineering Design Process isn’t something like one and done, I checked it off my list. You can do this all year long. So of course, that was all the standards. But you could do this every month. And it will totally change the way that students really attack this type of thinking. So not the only way to attack problems. But it’s just really great that they have different projects to express themselves with the Engineering Design Process. For younger students, I will often I encourage them to type their thinking when they are answering reflection questions. Of course I have, right the sounds you hear. So it’s totally fine. Even having kids have these questions up on their screen and seesaw and using them as sentence frames, and they can record their voice. On top of that, that which is excellent. They have the sentence frame right there in front of them. And they can go to a quiet spot and record how the project went. On the right hand side is actually a student recording. So when you click on the slides, you can listen to the voice. I wish he used the arrow to point to everything, but have students take a picture of their work and then again, go to a quiet spot. And they can record how their project work. 


Naomi Meredith  28:55

So this was another food protection challenge invention. And he explained all the process of how this whole design works, which was really great. The thing I like about having kids record over a picture is that they can do that later on. So they could take a picture one day, and then the next day they can record their voice. Maybe you have a designated recording station and students take turns so that there’s not all this screaming and excitement because there is when you’re doing challenges like this, but you could hear what students are working on. With this one again, I added more detailed questions. So more challenging questions for older students to think about. There is a video of at the top of a robot prototype and action and I think I was watching it you can hear my voice at the end I was very impressed because it stayed on the track the whole time. So that was super exciting. So we posted that video. And then having those pictures of things in action are really great. What I love is that students can also comment on one another’s work so that could be a whole lesson of how students can Give one another feedback on how their design work. This is a game design. And so students gave feedback to each other’s work on how well the game was played. And if it actually made sense. And some of the parents even have their child started commenting other work as well, which was super amazing. The seesaw blog is also another opportunity where you can share work to other audiences. So students younger or older, could share with their book buddies, or if you’re connected with other classes as well. So don’t skip that sharing piece. It’s super important for students to reflect and make meaning of the work that they did. When thinking through lessons that you want to implement the Engineering Design Process and integrating seesaw, there isn’t a whole lot of supplies and resources that you need. In fact, you can just start with donations of general recycled materials, so cardboard tubes, then cardboard, construction paper, anything you have on hand will work just as well. So don’t feel like you need anything fancy. But if you do want some fancy things, I have provided you my suggestions, my top 20 favorite STEM tools to integrate into any classroom setting. So these are things that have various price ranges. And you might even have some of these at home or even ask for some grants or different ways to gather these items in your classroom and build up a whole little STEM collection. And of course, don’t forget to also download your brainstorm planning guide for the Engineering Design Process, and then your poster that you can use with your students. As you can already tell, this presentation has a ton of visuals, and I bet you are dying. To see all of the examples and handouts from this presentation. You can grab the video recording of this episode, the video slides that I referenced throughout student examples and bonuses for only $5. That’s less than a fancy cup of coffee. The bonus includes my Engineering Design Process posters of various sizes and planning sheets to help you with your integration with seesaw or really any other edtech tool that you use in your classroom. This will be linked to the show notes and you can check it out all here Naomi meredith.com/seesawEDPvideoreplay.

integrating Seesaw

 

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More About your host, Naomi Meredith

Naomi Meredith is a former classroom teacher turned current K-5 STEM teacher and coach. Her role not only includes teaching over 500 students in her school, but also leading professional development and co-teaching with teachers to help them integrate STEM & Technology.

With over a decade of experience along with a M.Ed. in STEM Leadership and STEM certificate, she helps teachers navigate the best practices, strategies and tools out there.

She truly believes that any teacher out there can learn how to use STEM & Technology in their classrooms effectively. She can’t wait to connect with you and be your guide!

More About The Elementary STEM Coach Podcast

Are you tired of scrolling online for your next great STEM lesson? Do you feel like there is no time to plan, research and test meaningful STEM lessons, so you throw together a hands-on activity and hope that it works? What systems and routines should you set in place to help students be creative, critically think, and collaborate? 

The Elementary STEM Coach is a podcast for K-5 STEM teachers, classroom teachers, GT specialists, and homeschool parents looking for actionable STEM solutions. Each week, Naomi Meredith will share tools, resources and lesson ideas that are actionable in your classroom and create highly engaging experiences with your students. You’ll learn systems and routines that will create control in the chaos and that will keep you organized all year long. 

Your mindless scrolling days are over! Your new STEM-best friend is now here in your ear buds!