STEM Takes Wing!
Posted on February 3rd, 2017 by Mary Lord
Want to engage your students while helping scientists get the “big picture” on what’s happening to bird populations worldwide? Grab some binoculars and join the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, which takes place February 17-20, 2017.
One of the oldest and biggest citizen-science projects is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, held this year from February 17 to 20
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Grades K-5, K-12 Outreach Programs, Special Features, Web Resources | Comments Off on STEM Takes Wing!
Tags: Citizen Science, Class Activities, cornell ornithology lab, Curriculum, Events, Great Backyard Bird Count, national audubon society, STEM education
Students in grades 3 – 5 learn how alphanumeric symbols can be encoded for many fun purposes. In the first of two sessions, they learn about codes by making their own with a limited number of symbols. They then attempt to break each other’s codes and discover the relationship among encryption, decryption, and shared keys.
The Department of Homeland Security designates October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Its “Stop, Think, Connect” toolkit includes materials for various audiences, including students and educators, as well as guides to social media, phishing, and other topics.
Students in grades 3 to 5 use engineering problem solving to create structures from paper, straws, tape, and paper clips that can support the weight of at least one textbook. For the second trial, they examine examples of successful buildings in history and try again. 
After reading the story Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary, students will build an alarm system for something in the classroom, as the main character Leigh does to protect his lunchbox from thieves. Students will learn about alarms and use their creativity to create an alarm system to protect their lockers, desk, or classroom door.
Students in grades 5 to 7 use Bernoulli’s principle to manipulate air pressure in a series of fun activities so its influence can be seen on the objects around us.
Paris of students in grades 3 to 6 experience the engineering design process by building and modifying devices to catch and protect a “naked” egg as it is dropped from increasing heights. The activity scales up to district or regional egg drop competitions.
Mission to Mars, CubeSats, and Polymers for the Planet are among the hands-on engineering units developed by 4th to 8th grade science teachers in a unique partnership between the Boeing Company and the Teaching Channel.
In this collaborative math and art lesson, students in grades 4 through high school explore central ideas in industrial engineering – including productivity, efficiency, and quality – by designing their own assembly line and working together to mass produce greeting cards.
