by Anne Jolly

Our teams of 8^th grade science students stared at the piles of paint stirrers with expressions ranging from bafflement to careful calculation. Their challenge was to construct a catapult that would thrust a projectile onto a specific area marked on the floor. They discussed the problem, picked up the materials, shuffled them around, and finally began taping them together.

In the lab across the hall, teams of 8^th grade math students were busily constructing impact barriers. They grimaced in dismay or cheered with success as they measured their barriers’ effectiveness in reducing the impact of the crashes when their model cars sped down ramps and into the barriers. Several teams suggested changes they would make in the barrier’s “stuffing” so that the barriers would absorb more shock.

Another group of 8^th grade math teams were frowning in puzzlement as their experiments with bungee cord construction hit a snag. One team suggested that we (curriculum writers and teachers) make sure the three objects they were testing have different but proportional masses. Currently one object weighed four times as much as the other two, and this was making it impossible to get data to predict how the cords they designed would perform with objects of other sizes.

Still other teams of 8^th grade science students were cheering as a marble sped along the roller coaster track they had constructed – complete with loops and hills – and dropped safely into a small cup at the end of the ride. Some nearby teams found themselves adjusting the height or the hills on their coasters after their marbles went flying off the end, or stopped midway through the ride.

Giving students a role in STEM lesson development

All this experimentation took place just this past week in the Mobile public schools. Our student teams were doing important work in two ways. As STEM students, they were learning how certain science and math concepts applied to real engineering challenges. Just as important (at least from our perspective!) they were piloting some STEM lessons that might eventually be used with many other students.

The experimental lessons had first been outlined by math and science teachers working together with writers. Now they were being piloted in classrooms with student help to determine if the lessons accomplished their purpose and were clear, and if the activities worked.

In every case, as we worked through the pilot activities, the lessons were tweaked – often in significant ways – and new approaches and materials were substituted for things that didn’t pan out as expected. Now the lessons will go to the curriculum writers who will describe them in detail, format them, and run them by the lead teachers again before the final copies are distributed. These lessons will join others that are being distributed to middle school teachers system-wide to be field-implemented in classrooms next year. During the first rollout year, the lessons will be observed and adjusted again so that the final products will be as effective and polished as possible.

What doesn’t work matters!

As one of the two STEM lesson writers, I thoroughly enjoyed being with students in classrooms this past week, seeing how well the original lessons played out. Neither teachers nor writers were concerned that the lessons didn’t go smoothly – we expected that. Indeed, we learned a lot from this pilot and happily anticipate the new ideas and possibilities these STEM pilots revealed. All in all I’d give the whole week a big “thumbs up!”

The students also thought the lessons deserved a “thumbs up.” They gave us plenty of suggestions and feedback that we will certainly consider, such as . . .

“Give us more information about the catapults before we build them. You don’t have to show us pictures, just give us more information. And we need stronger rubber bands.”

“We don’t know why teams are using different sizes of rubber bands for our bungee cord construction. And we need to calculate the mass of the objects we are dropping ourselves.”

“We need more time on the construction part. We didn’t have time to test our roller coaster.”

“The graphs are too small to plot our data points, and we don’t have enough room on the worksheets to write.”

What students are saying about STEM

My favorite part of the week was seeing students become increasingly engaged in the STEM lessons and learning process. One student, in particular, didn’t like the STEM lessons at first. Frankly, she said, “I don’t know what to do.” But as she became more involved with her teammates, she began offering ideas, and by the end of the second day she was participating with confidence.

STEM is a growth experience for students in several different ways. I wrote down some of their comments to me as they went through the lessons.

“Wow! We’re going to the lab in math class . . . math class. ”

“I really love this! But it’s so frustrating when it doesn’t work and then we have to start over again. But then it’s so cool when we figure it out.”

“I really like STEM but it’s hard. It’s really hard.”

“I like getting to try things over and over until I figure them out and they work.”

“I learn more when I can do something. I like doing real things.”

“I like hands-on. It makes what I learn in class make sense. We used Newton’s Third Law of Motion today. I mean, we really used it and saw it work. Kinetic and potential energy, too.”

“Usually no one else wants to work with me, but in here they are working with me and copying my design because it works.”

“I made a catapult and I was so proud. I love this. At first it didn’t work but I got to change it and try again and figure it out. I called my sister last night and told her about it.”

 “STEM is fun. It’s challenging for me. I like trying to figure things out.”

Teamwork is too often the missing ingredient

So, it sounds as if everything went swimmingly.

Well, not quite.

One thing simply doesn’t happen naturally – teamwork. We know that from past experience, but there was no time in this experimental phase to teach students the value of working smoothly as a team, and to provide guidance for how to bring that about. So it was rough at times. And realistic, I’m sad to say.

In many STEM classrooms and settings, the fundamentals of becoming an effective team get short circuited. And yet it would make a lot of difference in student participation and learning if students could work together smoothly.

They don’t have to start out wanting to work as a team, but if they have some guidelines built directly into the lessons on how to become a team, including checkpoints where they measure their progress, then they will have more successful experiences as teams. That has value for them, for teachers, and for the workforce they will enter.

How we help groups of students become teams of students will be the topic of future posts here. I consider teamwork to be the most underrated and undervalued part of the STEM initiative.

In the meantime, I can say that things actually went quite well with the pilot. This process is a useful and methodical approach for developing STEM lessons that all middle grades teachers can use with the knowledge that they’ve been student-tested and approved!

by Anne Jolly

For some years now, I’ve been involved in writing STEM curriculum modules. The modules, developed with support from a National Science Foundation grant, are designed for 3 to 5 days, with math and science thoroughly intertwined around the engineering design process. (These modules are written by a team of writers, BTW, not just me.)

The math and science teachers who implement each module go through professional development together, and their students should have a seamless experience as they travel from math to science classrooms, working on their engineering challenge.

Recently I’ve also been partnering with Caroline Goode who is (among other things) a teaching eMentor for a joint project of the National Science Teachers Association and the New Teacher Center. Caroline (who answers to “Cal”) and I are writing STEM lessons for middle school science and math teachers in the Mobile County (AL) Public School System, with the talented staff of Engaging Youth through Engineering facilitating this effort. For this particular STEM initiative, the science and math teachers do not collaborate on the same challenge, although each challenge includes all four STEM core areas.

The kick-off

In the NSTA/NTC work, we start each round of lessons by working with selected math and science teachers from a particular grade level. Together we map out  the math, science, and engineering objectives for the quarter. Then we start brainstorming ideas. When we settle on a challenge, we match that to the engineering design process (EDP). More preliminary work goes into this, but I want to show you an example of a lesson that’s been developed using the EDP as the frame. So let’s cut to the chase.

The Challenge: Stop the Drop!

This lesson was written for 8^th grade science teachers. The science objectives included chemistry, physical and chemical changes, and acid-base reactions. Math objectives involved using scatter plots for bivariate measurement data to look at patterns of association between two quantities and also using straight lines to model relationships between two variables. The engineering content included applying technological tools and systems to solve practical problems with an understanding of societal issues.

So the question was: What real world challenge might we come up with that involves chemistry, scatter plots and line graphs and focuses on designing technologies or systems to solve practical problems in society? We needed to address a real-world issue. Here’s what the teachers decided:

Engineering is used to design technology to meet human needs, including methods of keeping people safe. Today, airbags are at the forefront of the effort to keep automotive travelers safe. What if airbag technology could be expanded to create something that could help rescue people who are trapped in burning buildings or in other high structures? This challenge (Stop the Drop!) focuses on designing an air cushion that would safely catch and protect a person jumping or falling from a building.

Mapping the Lesson to the EDP

Using the engineering design process as our organizer, we developed the following lesson. (I should note that before writing the lesson, teachers fleshed out the ideas and tried them in their classrooms. Cal and I did feasibility testing in our homes. We figured the cost of materials before recommending the approach. In other words, you don’t just jump from a brainstorming session to a finished product.)

GOAL: Design and develop an air cushion that will successfully prevent injury to a person falling from a building or other high elevation.  Obviously the teams can’t actually test this on a person, so the problem they work with must be more specific than that.

PROBLEM: Design and create a prototype air cushion using safe chemicals to inflate it enough to protect an object dropped from a height of 1.5 meters. To launch this challenge, kids watched a 30 second video clip that shows how airbags play a role in safety. Several good choices were out there, but we used this one.

RESEARCH: Investigate current airbag technology and how an acid (acetic acid, or vinegar) and a base (sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda) react to produce a gas (carbon dioxide) that will inflate a bag. Team members researched this on the Internet. I also made a handout with the information in the event that a class did not have Internet access.

To start students thinking about how they might use baking soda and vinegar, teachers showed this engaging 2-minute video.

DEVELOP: Brainstorm how to determine the ratios of acid–base combinations that produce the needed amount of gas to deploy their air cushions. We set some criteria and constraints (see graphic). Then we provided each team with a tub of materials (baking soda, vinegar, gallon-size zip-seal bag, metric ruler, paper cupcake liners, string, a plastic portion cup, etc.). Teams brainstormed and tested different ratios of these chemicals, and measured results (how much the different ratios cause their bag to inflate). We gave them these instructions.

One of their toughest decisions was how to get the sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid to come together after the bag is zipped so that no gas escapes. They also struggled a bit trying to figure out how to measure the bag’s circumference. Note that we didn’t give them a lot of information about things like that. Instead, we gave them a variety of materials and let them muck about and come up with their own ideas. Also notice that I could have correctly labeled this as part of the Research phase since the information students are gathering will help them decide on a prototype to test. The EDP steps are quite flexible, and are not necessarily linear.

CHOOSE: Decide on the system your team members believe has the most effective ratio of chemicals to inflate the air cushion based on plotting and estimating data from a line graph. Team members agreed that they were unlikely to stumble on the best ratio(s) by accident, so how could they use math to help them? They made a scatterplot of their data points; then informally fit a straight line as close to their data points as possible. From the graph they estimated the amount of sodium bicarbonate they would need to construct an air cushion that would be inflated just the right amount. (It’s not magic, but it gives them a starting point for making a choice about the ratio they will use.)

CREATE: Construct a prototype of your chosen air cushion system using the amounts of baking soda and vinegar you believe to be optimal. Each team only got to construct one prototype, so they wanted to get it right.

TEST AND EVALUATE: Conduct a test to determine if an object representing a person might survive intact without bouncing off the air cushion or sinking so deeply that it hits the ground. Collect, record, and analyze data. All students watched as each team tested its air cushion and recorded their observations on an observation sheet. To do the test, a team placed the air cushion on the floor. From a height of 1 ½ meters (~5 ft.) a team member dropped a 2 oz. portion cup (without a top) containing 10 pennies. The cup represented the “faller” — the person who is falling or jumping. To pass the test their air cushion must stop the cup without spilling any pennies. Pennies will fall out if the cup hits the floor (the air cushion is underinflated) or if the cup bounces off (the air cushion is overinflated).

COMMUNICATE: Discuss the results of the test with other team members. What were the results? Did the faller survive? What worked well? What could be improved? As usual, we reminded teams that they have not “failed” if their prototype doesn’t pass the test. They have “learned.” Like good engineers, they will use what they learned to design another prototype.

REDESIGN: Redesign your air cushion deployment system so that it will more efficiently protect a person falling from a building or other high structure. As time allows, student teams can repeat elements of the design process as they use their data and observations to improve their prototype.

COMMUNICATE: Make recommendations for a follow-up redesign and produce a report. Ask each team to choose one air cushion protection system prototype from the class tests that they think is the most promising in terms of results and cost efficiency (the air cushion that took the least amount of soda would be considered the most cost efficient) and propose ideas for the next redesign. The report the teams produce could be written, oral, in the form of a panel discussion, etc. It could be posted on the class website as a blog or a video.

So that’s the basic idea

It’s okay to include a step more than once during a STEM lesson (e.g., Communicate) or to leave out a step entirely if it doesn’t fit. Keep in mind that the EDP steps don’t have to occur in any rigid order, either. Whatever makes sense.

Please ask questions about what I’ve described here if you don’t find I’ve provided all the information you need to get a clear picture. Also keep in mind that this is a rather quick STEM lesson designed for a particular need/situation. There are more comprehensive lessons, longer lessons, and certainly better lessons.

My goal in this post has been to walk you through some of the basics of using the Engineering Design Process to successfully incorporate STEM components into math and science learning objectives. It’s not really so hard, is it?

by Anne Jolly

When I was young, I secretly hoped to find that magic bottle – the one with the genie who suddenly poofs out and announces dramatically, “You have one wish, so you’d better make it good.”

Well, if I had one wish for education, I would wish for a miracle that I believe would have a powerful impact on student learning. I would ask the genie to redesign teachers’ schedules and build in time for them to work together to plan, learn, share, and reflect on ways to implement STEM curriculum and the engineering design process in their classrooms.

In many places, of course, teachers are already being asked to plan and implement STEM lessons. But so often these “requests” are accompanied by very little preparation, explanation, or time to work together. In a search for some kind of help, these teachers may look for STEM lessons online. That can be both a rewarding and frustrating experience. It’s rewarding because teachers will, in fact, find some engaging lessons out there. But it’s also frustrating because the lessons they find may have little to do with what they are teaching.

Maybe the process that a group of 8th grade teachers in Mobile, Alabama are using to design STEM lessons can help. Let’s give it a shot. (Keep in mind that the principles they are using would work equally well with other subjects.)

12 key steps to good STEM lesson building

1. Prepare the STEM lesson around a topic you will be teaching. Like these Mobile teachers, I’m guessing you don’t have time to get “off track” with regard to the curriculum pacing guide.

8th grade STEM planning team – Mobile AL

During the second quarter, 8th grade science students in Mobile will be studying physical and chemical changes, types of chemical reactions, and acids and bases. The student math objectives include computational fluency and solving linear equations. Sounded like a possible fit. Great! That allowed the teachers to blend some math and science content so kids can actually see how the two subjects interconnect.

2. Connect that topic to a real world problem. Easier said than done.These Mobile teachers stretched their thinking caps to arrive at a real world issue. They decided to explore the problem of airbags. A simple and safe chemical reaction takes place between acetic acid (vinegar) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). This produces a gas (carbon dioxide) that might be used to expand airbags. Voila!

3. Clearly define the STEM challenge students will tackle. The teachers tossed around ideas on how the air bag might be used: possibly as a cushion for elbows or knees if contact occurs during a sports activity; or possibly as a non-inflammatory automobile air bag. Here’s the draft challenge the teachers are working on now: Design a cost-effective airbag from nonflammable chemicals that will inflate quickly and prevent injury.

4. Decide what success looks like. This is still under construction, as the Mobile teachers discuss how teams might test the effectiveness of their air bag in preventing injury. Using a boiled egg as a passenger is a popular way of doing this. Exactly how will they conduct this investigation, and what measurements will they take? Those are questions teachers address next. Fortunately they have a good resource in Alicia Lane’s lesson plan on the Chemistry of Air Bags.

5. Use the engineering design process for planning. In another week or so, the teachers will get together to develop the lesson plan. Since they will be teaching students about the tried-and-true engineering design process, they will follow this kind of format in their planning as well. Whether you’re working alone or with a team, I think you’ll find it useful. (Note: the order of the lesson components may vary from one lesson to another. It will usually take more than one day to complete a lesson.)

6. Help students identify the challenge. Do this in an engaging way. Set up a scenario that captures the students’ interest and lays out the problem. YouTube videos may come in handy. Use a skit or some other attention-getter. In the end, be sure the students understand their challenge and, indeed, feel challenged.

7. Involve students (in teams) in researching the content for the challenge. Note that teachers have an opportunity to teach content such as balancing chemical equations — that’s part of the curriculum. Keep in mind, however, that this student research can be hands-on research. It may involve learning about acid-base reactions by experimenting with the chemicals they will use. It can also include learning about air bags. This may involve reading or videos. Research doesn’t need to be just a “nose-in-a-book” process.

8. Encourage teams to develop their own ideas about how to solve the problem. Before you turn students loose to brainstorm ideas and solutions, you’ll want to establish some criteria and constraints. For example, one criterion might be that their air bag should be cost effective. Exactly how much of each chemical will they need to produce enough gas to fill the air bag (a plastic sandwich bag) to the optimal level?  A constraint might be that they have only a certain amount of acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate to work with.

This is really important: Let students generate multiple ideas for solving their problem. One thing they need to learn is that there are usually multiple solutions for problems – not “one right answer.” This is the step that separates real STEM learning from cookie cutter lab experiments. After students get some ideas on the table, they can select one to try. (In this case, teams might muck around with the chemicals and come up with their own proportions for inflating the airbag. If students will be using a boiled egg in their investigation, they will need to engage in another round of brainstorming – how will they attach the passenger to the airbag? As they work together, monitor how their teamwork is going. Is everyone participating? Sharing? Respectful?)

New Zealand egg crash video

9. Guide teams to choose one idea to test and then create their prototype. In this case they might select the airbag system they think has the most cost-effective ratio of chemicals and a device they think will best transport the passenger egg. Let them dive into building a prototype of their air bag system. (Again – watch to see that they’re working as a team.)

10. Facilitate the process of prototype testing and evaluation. Teams should test their prototypes and collect data on how well they worked. This may involve one test or many tests, depending on what kind of data they will collect. Then teams should analyze their data and decide how well their prototypes met the criteria.

11. Involve teams in communicating their findings. The teams might display their data and then make decisions as a whole class about which airbag system worked best and why.

12. Redesign if there’s time. Once teams have time to learn from one another, they can then redesign their airbag systems and improve them.

The key take-aways

I can’t conclude this overly-long post until I reiterate these important points to remember:

• Provide lots of guidance but few instructions.
• Mistakes and design failures are good methods of learning.
• The STEM process is not linear – the sequence of events may change.
• Students work in teams to solve STEM challenges.
• Work with colleagues if possible to write and implement STEM lessons. If it’s not possible, then go for it anyway!

Thanks for hanging in there, and happy lesson developing!

Genie image: Thomas Hawk, Creative Commons

by Anne Jolly

Good news arrived via email this morning! Change the Equation has determined that the EYE Middle Grades Modules I wrote about in last week’s post meet the high standards for inclusion in their STEMworks Database. I decided to check out the Change the Equation website and look at the principles they use for including resources in their database. These principles, I figure, would be handy for teachers who want to work on STEM lessons.

Why would teachers want to write STEM lessons anyway? Why not leave this to the folks outside the classroom? If you’re a teacher, you already know the answer to that question. Teachers are the people closest to the learners. No one knows the students better, and no one knows better what works in real classrooms.

The most workable, insightful and effective lessons I taught in middle grades science were lessons I got from my teacher colleagues. I scavenged lessons from teachers in my school and district, and I eagerly shared lessons with teachers at state and national science conventions, such as the National Science Teachers Assocation.

Teachers can be a continuous resource for one another. When we grow our skills, document our successful lesson plans, and share the knowledge we accrue, we leave a lasting heritage. Even more important: we ensure that everything we know and have done during our careers lives on — it doesn’t retire with us when leave the classroom and tuck our boxes of “stuff” away in storage.

10 Principles for Developing STEM Lessons

So, having gotten that off my chest (smile), back to the Overarching Principles established by the Change the Equation organization.  With apologies to the CTEq folks who developed these great design principles, I’m liberally paraphrasing — and I’m posing some of them as questions. I think this can be a useful starting point for teachers in building effective STEM lessons.

For best results, form an interdisciplinary team of teaching colleagues (you might include an engineer in this group as well) and tackle some of these questions. They are not necessarily in order.

1. Why do our students need STEM lessons? (In other words, what added value would these lessons provide?) Check here for some ideas.
2. What do our students need to learn? In addition to the STEM thinking and engineering process skills, students need specific content in math and science. For each lesson, see how you can align math and science; then come up with a real world problem that uses that math and science to solve the problem.
3. What students are we targeting with this lesson? Ideally, STEM lessons are inclusive of groups that are underrepresented in STEM fields, such as girls and low-income students. All students need to become more critical thinkers and problem-solvers.
4. How will we involve students in learning through inquiry and hands-on learning? Students need to be able to pose relevant questions, seek multiple possible explanations, test those explanations, and evaluate the results. They especially need to know that it’s okay not to get it right. (They often learn more from what doesn’t work than from what does work. ) The idea is to rethink, redesign, and keep on working to improve a solution. So make sure that your lessons offer open-ended research activities.
5. Do our lessons include a focus on “21^st-century skills?” Do we even know what 21^st century skills are?  A conversation with corporation and business folks could serve to provide you with valuable insights and to let business and industry know what you’re doing. Once they know what you’re about, they may provide resources and assistance. No one wants you to succeed in preparing a 21^st century workforce more than business and industry.
6. What information and expertise do we need to create STEM lessons and where can we gain knowledge and skills? I always wish knowledge and expertise would just drop into my lap (or brain) out of the sky. That won’t happen. Take some time to research information about STEM and STEM lessons. Gain a deeper knowledge of the engineering topics you want to build the STEM lessons around. Explore the technology possibilities. Then roll up your sleeves and begin working to develop a lesson. Try it out. Then adjust it so that students will be even more successful. Keep at it until it works as intended, and then document it.

The information you learn can come from various places. The expertise will come from your personal interactions with the lessons and students.

7. How will we gather data on the effectiveness of these lessons? Continuously collect data by observing how the students interact with the project, what questions they come up with, how they approach solving problems, their level of enthusiasm, and how well they work together. (Remember, teamwork is a part of STEM.) Of course, you can use written assessments to determine their mastery of STEM content, but your primary goals for successful STEM curriculum include the problem-solving approaches and habits of mind students build while engaging in the work.
8. Are our lessons written so that other teachers can understand and replicate them? In other words, do the lessons include enough detail and resources that other teachers can be successful with them? Are any student handouts written in “kid speak?” Be sure to ask a couple of folks to read the lessons and point out areas that may be unclear.
9. Do we have the conditions and support in place for the lessons we are writing? Consider the number of days the lesson will take, the equipment you will need, and any outside help from parents or businesses that you will need when you implement the lessons. If you lack equipment, you have a solid reason to communicate with parents and businesses.
10. How will we communicate and share these lessons? That’s the fun part. Put on your thinking caps and you can find many ideas for sharing lessons. One thing to consider . . . submit them to MiddleWeb. We’re always looking for good teacher resources to share.

Resources for STEM Lessons

Lots of resources exist to help you as you develop STEM lesson plans. I’ve shared several in previous posts. I’ll add a few more here:

• If you need help in guiding students to ask good questions, try this article from Mind/Shift.

• I-STEM boasts a list of STEM lessons.  Here’s the link to their middle school lessons.

• The National Science Foundation provides a lengthy list of Resources for STEM Education.

Go for it!  Kick off a STEM initiative in your school . . . one STEM lesson at a time.