Friday, December 7, 2018

NEW - - Science in the Makerspace

There were several reasons for the changes to our curriculum and structure this year.  One of those reasons was to increase the focus on engineering in the elementary schools.  Subsequently, we adopted a new science curriculum at the k-5 level.  One of the three units at each grade level is a physical science unit.  Each has a final project that is "makerspacey" in nature - heavy on the design process, very open ended, and applying science concepts to a building task.  We are teaching the physical science unit in the Library/STEM classes this year.  We started the year with those units at 3rd grade and 4th grade - Forces and Interactions, and Energy Works, respectively.  It's been a big change for us and for them, but everyone has enjoyed it so far! 

This week we begin the Push, Pull and Go unit in kindergarten, and the Light and Sound unit in first grade.  This will lead to the kindergarten and first grade students spending considerably more time in the makerspace this year than in previous years.  Over the next few years, it will be very interesting to see how this impacts their work on design projects as they get older.  We've seen a change in our current third and fourth graders, now that we've had the makerspace for 4 years, particularly in the amount of creativity and independent thinking they're showing. 

We continue to be so fortunate to have a community willing to support "out of the box" ideas like tearing out a computer lab and building a makerspace.  Our students are showing the benefits of this every year!



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