During the 2015-2016 school year, I decided to put my learning from Space Camp to use in my classroom. I wanted to have my students complete some engineering projects that would bring their math (and science) knowledge out and allow for creativity. Since I teach 3rd, 4th and 5th grade math and wanted to include all of my students, I came up with 12 activites. I used some of the resources I had gathered from the Educator's Center at the Space and Rocket Center, in addition to other resources I found for free online through Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest. I modified the activities to be more open-ended - less "cookie-cutter lab." And then I started the grant writing process. Luckily, there are a lot of organizations willing to fund STEM related projects. Toshiba gave me $400 and our local Rotary gave me another $400 which allowed me to buy enough supplies for my classroom and also buy materials for our whole 3rd grade to perform the challenges. Below you fill find the previews of the documents that I created along with weblinks for purchasing the items on Teachers Pay Teachers (only $2 each.) In the documents you will find videos to help teach, YouTube videos I put together after we finished each one, and a couple of pictures. On the second and third page of each document, you will find more details about how to go about using these resources and gathering materials. There is also a reflection sheet at the end of each document in case you need a way to assess student learning. Have fun! And don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.
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I haven’t had a chance to really talk about the most amazing part of this experience which was the amazing people I met from all over the world. By the end of the week, I was tired and exhausted and really ready to come home and start summer break (since the two weeks leading up to Space Camp I had been at Summer Institute and still working.) But leaving was bittersweet because I know there is a chance that I will never see these awesome people again that I truly bonded with during our time. Cindy was our crew director from Huntsville. She teaches 4th grade, and we joked with her about being our mom all week, but she really was! Very rarely did any of us have the schedule or any idea of what was next. Cindy politely steered and lead us around all week. We had three people who currently teach in Mexico. Diane and Diana are from the Pacific Northwest but both teach at an international school in Guadalajara right now. They were also my AMAZING roommates all week. Diane teaches middle school science and Diana teaches middle school math. Viviana was also from Mexico but from Mexicali. She has two girls of her own and in her free time drives an off-road race car. From the states, we had Jessica who lives in Portland and teaches science to middle schoolers. She has a twin sister and has traveled all over the world. Michelle and Mary are both math teachers. Michelle is from New Hampshire, and Mary is from New Jersey. Mary’s parents are from Egypt, and Michelle was my “grew up in a small town” buddy. Sean was also from New Jersey where he teaches science and also runs an observatory and teaches astronomy. Andrew was our last U.S. resident, and he was from Chicago where he teaches science and social studies to middle schoolers. Andrew recently got married and is going on his honeymoon after he goes to Costa Rica to play rugby when camp is over. Liam lives in North America but north of the border in Canada. He teaches on a native reservation and lives nearby there with his wife and three kids. Gabriel was our European teacher as he lives in Romania where he teaches physics. Gabriel had to miss his son’s middle school graduation to join us on this adventure. Kirill was from St. Petersburg, Russia, where he left his wife and young daughter. Kirill teaches computer science to high schoolers. Kiran is an administrator at her high school in India. I loved watching Kiran try many things this week that she had never done before. She and I had conversations during the week about how there were very few opportunities for girls when she was growing up (like learning to swim!) and how things have changed so much in India. Sik Mei is a science teacher from Malaysia. She is small and mighty and so very smart. And rounding out the Asian contingency was Glen from the Phillippines (goofy Glen!) Glen kept smiling all week and kept all of us laughing. All total that is 16 people from 8 different countries and so much brain power. We worked together, laughed together, ate together, danced together, and I am really going to miss hanging out with these amazing educators who taught me so much. Thanks for flying me to the moon and making memories! After five amazing days, it is time to say goodbye to Huntsville and my amazing new friends. But not before one more jam-packed day of fun! We began the morning learning about the Space Camp options for our students. One of the most amazing things is that Dan Coates created a program for blind students that has been going on for 26 years. We got to hear from Dan about the special programming that Space Camp is able to do to allow ALL students a chance to experience this place. I am anxious to share that information with our special education team at home to see what kids might be able to learn from this experience. We also had some time to stop in the resource center to pick up free materials to take back to our classrooms for lesson planning. I am most excited about a couple of engineering/math challenges that I found in a couple of the resources. There are two "Design Squad Nation" engineering projects (one about the Solar System and one about the moon.) The wheels are already turning in my head about how I might have a monthly engineering day where students use their math knowledge to complete some of the missions from these manuals. Then it was one last trip to the classroom for one more session of problem solving. This time we learned about the water filtration system in the shuttle. Do you know that astronauts drink their own pee? Of course, it is filtered! They claim that it is cleaner water than you can buy in bottles here on Earth. The real reason NASA was motivated to create such a system is that for every pound of materials sent to space, the cost is $25,000. So sending the 75 gallons of water that are needed for the shuttle and crew to function properly is just not economically feasible. Our job was to create a water filtration system using provided materials. It was really hard to get the desired color, pH level, and conductivity to make our mixture safe for drinking. We also learned what astronauts in space do with the solid waste... I won't gross you out here but I will say it is an ingenious plan, and it does not just simply get left out in space at the dump. Our last learning opportunity after lunch was another session with the former Space Camp teachers, Janelle & Martha. Janelle shared information about her programs in her Atlanta schools. Martha let us play with different types of rockets and experiment with mass and distance. I love that I now have ideas on how to bring math to life in my classroom with measurement and angle work through rockets. I see straw rockets in our future in my classroom with lessons related to mass and measurement and trajectory and angle measurements. Hmmmm... We had a little free time to explore the museum (and gift shop.) A few of us decided to have some fun with photos. We also found the memorial for Miss Baker, the first monkey in space. Apparently people still leave bananas on the memorial for her. And then it was time for graduation! After a few more pictures and a brief graduation ceremony (where we received our wings and were allowed to turn out nametags right-side up finally!) we ate dinner under the Saturn 5 rocket and dancing on the moon - well a graphic of the moon. Andrew and I found a sign with Alan Bean's name on it. He was part of the Apollo 12 mission to the moon and was the 4th person ever to walk on the moon. Team Harmony danced until the end! What an amazing week with a fabulous group of people! One of our tasks this week was to design a team patch. Our teammate Vivian is an awesome artist and created ours. We had eight countries represented on Team Harmony so we knew it needed to represent each of those and the fact that we are all teachers. So this is what we came up with: Today we spent a lot of time in the classroom doing problem solving, team lessons. This morning's session was experimenting with ablative shielding. As spacecraft reentry our atmosphere, they must withstand 3000 degree temperatures so they must be able to withstand this temperature for three minutes. On the Gemini and Apollo missions, the ships had ablative shielding on the bottom side which worked to dissipate and reflect. As the shielding heated up, it would peel off and in peeling off it would take some of the heat with it. In the shuttle missions, the tiles were meant to absorb the heat. Our task was to build a shield for less than $100 (materials had a cost for each) and use it to protect an egg for 3 minutes from a blowtorch. My team's egg survived! While I can't see bringing this exact lesson back to my classroom, I loved how our instructors didn't spend a whole lot of time front-loading the lesson. While I found it a little frustrating to not know what each type of materials' intended purpose was or any idea of how it would perform under fire, it was a true lesson based on inquiry, hypothesizing, and testing. I only wish we could have had a second chance based on our findings from the first round. Next up was a quick trip to the moon. We suited up to complete our Lunar Mission. Without too much complication, we successfully left and returned to Earth with the correct human cargo. And we even had some fun in the process! I kind of liked being in charge of the Orion spacecraft and having to find all the right buttons and switches at the right time. We were told that the new Orion ships have even less buttons and switches (60 to be exact) than we do as everything is becoming more and more computer-based. The Orion capsules are being built to potentially go to Mars at some point. NASA is planning the first flight on Orion in 2021. After lunch, we participated in the Eggs-Prize (a play on the X Prize which is a commercial competition to get a spacecraft into outer space.) Team Harmony and Team Kibo competed against each other to create a Mars rover to fit inside a landing craft which could drop from the sky and exit the craft and roll out onto the planet. Did I mention there was another egg that had to survive? We had a budget and performance goals as part of our point system for winning. Team Harmony won! Our third grade team of teachers at Werner have the kids do an egg-drop experiment with the kids. I can't wait to get home and explore with them how we might incorporate a space-theme and adding a rover to their drop. I like how the set-up for this experiment gave us a reason for doing the egg drop (building and testing a landing module for space exploration) and not just the simple goal of saving an egg. I can see the kids buying into the experience more if they have a context/story to go along with the building. Our last official Space Camp activity for the day was to shoot off our rockets. It was the first time I have ever had a chance to create a rocket and shoot it off. Unfortunately, my rocket landed in a tree so it is going to stay at Space Camp forever! We did end our day a little earlier than usual so a huge group of Space Campers headed over to a local bar to enjoy an evening of karaoke. I won't torture you with videos of that but suffice to say that we all had fun singing every space, moon, and rocket song we could come up with! What a long day! We started leaving the dorms for breakfast at 7:00am and didn't get back until almost 10:00pm. And the day started with a bang and ended with a bang! We began our day with our Mission to the International Space Station. Five of us were stationed in Mission Control. Four were stationed in the Atlantis shuttle and six teachers were in the International Space Station. As CAPCOM, my job was to participate in conversations and problem solving in the Mission Control room and communicate everything to the shuttle crew to be carried out. After last night's stressful run-through, I actually quickly got the hang of my job today (even if I didn't understand half of the instructions I was relaying. We were told that in real life, the CAPCOM job is usually held by a person who has either been through astronaut training and/or has been to space themselves. I could easily see why this would be handy because I would have a better idea about where the buttons, levers, and switches were that I was telling the commander and pilot to take care of. Nonetheless, it was cool to have all of the screens in front of me so that we could keep an eye on what every group was doing. There is also a simulator screen that shows what the shuttle is doing while it is happening (it is also showing actually what the crew is doing to affect the process.) We had a little fun at the end when the shuttle came in to land by telling the commander to barrel roll the shuttle. That didn't end so well when they crashed and we had to reset the mission back a few minutes to try again (but we all got a good laugh out of it!) We dealt with anomalies (issues)which required problem solving on our part beyond our normal script. And we got really good at saying things like "Roger" or "Copy that" or "That is a go." Every instruction I relayed started with, "Orbiter, this is CAPCOM, please..." It really is like doing a great big play where everyone has a part to play. I can't wait to share with my students about this experience working as a team to complete a mission! After our mission was complete and everyone was safely back on Earth, we headed over to learn how to make and actually make rockets - including spray painting. This task was followed by a trip to the IMAX movie, Journey to Space. We then had a couple of hours of free time to explore the rest of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Some of the girls from my team too the time to explore the grounds outside where there are more spacecraft. Then it was back to work preparing for our next mission to the moon. This time I was the pilot of the Orion capsule whose mission was to take a team of mission specialists to the moon to land a rover on the moon. Their task was to fix broken windows and other issues on the Rising Star (a station on the moon) and then replace mission specialists on the moon that needed to return to Earth. This scenario also had Mission Control stationed on the moon in the Shackleton Operations Control Room (SOCR.) The Commander Liam and I would be in charge of docking on the moon and transferring mission specialist and then return to Earth. Confusing enough?! Add to that the 5 different panels and 4 computer screens we were in charge of in order to make sure everything was done correctly on the ship. This was a run through for tomorrow's "real" mission. I have to admit that this mission seemed easier since we had already completed one so we might have gotten a little silly singing and playing a little Frank Sinatra "Fly Me to the Moon." And that all seems like enough for one day right? This is astronaut training so wrong! After dinner, we had a presentation on the current plans for NASA, international, and commercial space flights. And then the real fun of the day began... simulator training! We got to spin around and jump around to finish up the day. The jumping chair is meant to simulate 1/6 gravity just like on the moon. The spinning chair is worst-case scenario control practice for righting an out-of-control craft. Once we had expended the last of our energy we were finally allowed to collapse back in our dorm room! Did I mention it is hot in Alabama? Like really hot!! Like seriously hot and humid. Of course, they are having a heat wave while we are here (90+ every day.) Today we were outside for most of the day, and I truly don’t know how people work outside here. Nonetheless, today was amazing and very, very busy. Our team’s first big event was out at the low ropes course. Team Harmony was split into two groups and challenged with our first task – island hopping in Maui. Well not really but we did have to get our whole team from one wooden platform to the next with only two boards that were way too short to reach by themselves. It is times like this when you are glad you have a Romanian physics teacher on your team! My roommate Diane and I were the leaders of this event but we couldn’t talk. I know… me not talk!! But I did it and we did it! We worked together on three other tasks: nuclear waste management (with buckets, ropes and balls,) boat balancing (a giant seesaw that must remain balanced,) and a spacewalk (on 4X4 wooden pieces that have a tendency to “float” away.) It was all a great opportunity to work on our communication, collaboration and trust of one another. And a much needed break from all of yesterday’s sitting. I am anxious to take some of these team building experiences back to my classroom in the fall. My soon-to-be 5th grade group had some challenges last year as 4th graders with group work and positive communication. I think an activity like he bucket challenge could be a good way to set the tone for the new school year that this class will be about learning math through communication, collaboration, and trust in one another's ideas. And then came the most exciting part of Space Camp: heading to Aviator’s Challenge. We got to experience water simulations of parachuting to a water landing, a helicopter crash and water escape, and a helicopter rescue in a basket from the water. For many of our international friends this was their first time ever swimming. It was amazing to see their bravery at really stepping out of their comfort zone to try these activities. I had a very interesting conversation about cultural differences with Kiran who is from India. She was sharing about how in her generation, women were no allowed to learn to learn to swim or learn to drive or many other activities not seen as "female." Hence, her fear of being in the water. She said in just one generation though, things have changed dramatically so that her daughter is able to do all of these things. So fascinating to talk to people from other cultures!
Back at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, we headed to the Davidson Center which is the newest building that now houses the Saturn 5 rocket that used to launch early space capsules out of our atmosphere. We were lucky enough to have a tour from Thomas, a former NASA systems engineer. He shared the history of the rocket program. We learned fascinating stories about Werner von Braun who was the German rocket scientist that really is responsible for NASA’s success. It turns out we have the German’s to thank for the birth of our space program. Von Braun was a German scientist during World War II. As the war drew to a close, von Braun and his brother went looking for American troups to turn themselves over (knowing that if the Russian’s captured them they would be tortured and probably killed.) The American’s did take them at POW’s and sent them to New Mexico for three years. Realizing the importance of von Braun’s knowledge, he was eventually offered a deal – help us build a rocket and we’ll grant you citizenship. Huntsville already had the U.S. rocket center at Red Stone, so von Braun brought his family and moved there. And the rest is history. After all of his work helping and working for NASA, von Braun had the idea to build the museum we were at all week and eventually he worked with Buckbee (our speaker from yesterday) to create Space Camp. Thomas continued teaching us about the Saturn 5 and the importance and uses of each piece. We had a chance to take a peek inside a Gemini capsule. (Did you know that these held two guys and they stayed in there for two weeks and did space walks outside of it?!!) We also got to climb inside a mock-up of the lunar module from the Apollo missions to the moon. You really begin to appreciate how amazing it is that anyone was willing to sign up for this work and be brave enough to venture into space. After dinner, we still weren’t done with the fun. We found out our assignments for our first of two missions. This first mission would be a shuttle blast-off to dock with the International Space Station for a solar panel repair. My job was CAPCOM. That meant staying on Earth in Mission Control (MOCR) and being the communications director with the space shuttle team. Can I just say that I cannot imagine working in MOCR for real? Our training tonight was a little extra stressful since the Space Camp staff was experiencing some technical difficulties with computers and headsets. I left feeling like the shuttle crew’s lives may be in jeopardy tomorrow because I have no idea how to do my job. Let’s hope that the “real mission” tomorrow goes better than the practice tonight! I feel like today's experience will be great to share with my students, especially my 5th graders where we set healthy risk-taking goals each year as part of their gifted affective learning plans. Completing this mission is putting me completely out of my comfort zone and risk failure so I have an opportunity to grow and reflect in the same way that I ask them to learn. Today was the first official day of activities at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. I say official because yesterday was really day one but it was simply a travel and move in day. We got our swag bag yesterday (t-shirts, water bottle, flight suit, backpack) and then I actually snuck out to have dinner with my brother-in-law John and his family since they live here in Huntsville. I also had a chance to meet my roommates for the week, Diane and Diana, who are teachers from the U.S. but teaching in Guadalajara, Mexico, at an international school. This morning officially began with breakfast and orientation. I happened to sit down next to Mr. Bean - Andrew Bean that is! Andrew is a science teacher from Chicago. Turned out we are also on the same team - Team Harmony. (By the end of the day, we also realized that his family is from Ohio and so is my husbands. Who knows maybe we are related?! After getting organized into our teams and putting on our flight suits for the first time, we had a chance to meet Ed Buckbee, one of the original organizers of Space Camp and public relations for NASA. Ed told fascinating stories about the beginnings of the "Space Race" and his work with the Mercury astronauts (the likes of Alan Shepard and John Glenn.) He continued working for NASA through the Gemini program and the Apollo moon missions. He then worked with Werner von Braun to get the Rocket Center opened and eventually then Space Camp added to the experiences here. Great talk with fascinating facts and stories! We had a chance after lunch to meet with a couple of former educator Space Campers and hear how they brought back their learning to their classrooms. Martha, from Mexico, started a rocket club. She shared with us some of her lessons which got me thinking about some fun adaptations to straw rocket and bottle rocket lessons to create real opportunities for inquiry learning for kids. Why not give the kids a straw and a plain sheet of paper and let them figure out the best shapes for fins and the best length and cone shape? Do we always have to provide the "cookie cutter" instructions for how to make a rocket? I love lessons where you create a need first and the learning comes naturally along with that. Janelle, a science teacher from Atlanta, then presented us a challenge get ourselves off Mars by building a radio tower to transmit a signal back to Earth. Now we were really doing the marshmallow challenge http://marshmallowchallenge.com/Welcome.html which I do every year with my 5th graders. What I loved with this lesson though was creating a story for why the kids are building the tallest tower out of spaghetti and a marshmallow. Janelle had us working to take a lesson and find a way to put a "space" spin on it. To finish up our day we had two last presentations. The first was background information on Space Hardware. We learned by comparing the old Discovery/Columbia-type shuttles to the new Orion plans for hopeful missions to Mars. Part of this learning was playing with fire! Fire related to burning fuels and igniting rockets into and around in space. I learned a new word too. Hyperbolic = when two chemicals ignite as soon as they meet And the last presentation today was by a former NASA astronaut, Dr. Dan Thomas. He flew on four Columbia & Discovery missions to space. He told fascinating stories of what the life of an astronaut is like both on Earth and in space. He talked about how the shuttle would orbit the Earth 16 times a day (meaning you have 45 minutes of daylight and then 45 minutes of night continuously!) But I think the information I want to bring back to my GT kids (who hate to take risks and not be perfect all the time!) is that he was rejected by NASA three times in seven years before he got a yes at the age of 35 to come and train for four years to take his first flight at 39. Talk about a great role model for perseverance and hard work! Anxious to see what tomorrow brings as we are headed to the aviator challenge. I also can't wait to get to know Team Harmony teachers better. There are 15 of us from all over the world - Philippines, Canada, India, Mexico, Russia, Romania, and all over the U.S. Here are a few parting shots from the day...
We screen kids in 2nd grade for an identification in gifted/talented creativity so each year I end up with a handful of kids that are identified in this area that then need to receive services and instruction to enhance their learning. Since there is no curriculum that I have found to teach kids how to be more creative, I have used a variety of resources to try and meet their needs. I thought it might be helpful to share how I go about planning for creativity lessons. My focus for planning instruction is based on two areas: 1. That they understand what it means to be creative in ALL areas. Activities we do show them how to be creative as a scientist, performer, mathematician, writer, etc. I try to make sure that they understand that no matter what your future profession, creativity is a valuable skill. So many times they think of it as being good at art and drawing. I try to show them that creativity can be expressed through problem solving too. 2. I want them to know that sometimes being creative is coming up with lots of ideas (fluency) and other times it is the details you add (elaboration) and other times it is thinking of things in new ways/problem solving (flexibility.) We try to do projects where the final product emphasizes one of these elements so they can practice. Every so often they do a project for me that requires all three: brainstorm all the solutions you can think of, choose the most unique idea, and then carry out your plan with appropriate details. Every time I start with a new group, I take some time to get their stereotypes literally on the table. I cover the table with paper and ask the kids to draw and/or write what creativity is and then we do another paper with where does it come from. The discussion that comes from sharing their ideas is always interesting and leads me to see what areas we need to explore to open up their minds. Check out this link from my classroom blog if you want more details on this activity. http://traceybean.weebly.com/blog/creativity1 I use a variety of resources to plan lessons. Most lessons stand alone or only continue for a couple of weeks. My creativity groups only get to come to me for 1/2 an hour a week on Fridays so time is limited. Some of my favorite resources are from Teachers Pay Teachers. Click on the images below to check them out. You can read about a couple of other activities I have done in my classroom by clicking on the links below from my classroom website:
http://traceybean.weebly.com/blog/more-creative-opportunities http://traceybean.weebly.com/blog/creativity-5-for-5 Lastly, because my students have Advanced Learning Plans that spell out their goals for the year in their area of identification, my students have a creativity goal. And when you have a goal in education, it is always great to be able to assess their progress. I have worked with another teacher from my district to create a creativity product rubric that we use on various projects during the year to give students feedback. Use the image below or download for free from TPT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Creativity-Rubric-1062736 For the kids at my school, Monday was the 100th day of school. When I taught primary grades, this was an important day - not to be forgotten. These last few years teaching intermediate though, it is prime time to be prepping for state testing so the pressure seemed too big to take a day to have some fun. This year, I have been trying to take some of the pressure off myself and remember that I teach kids. And kids like to have a little fun so this year the 100th day of school did not pass us by without notice! My 5th grade GT students happily took on the challenge provided by Hodges Herald - 100 problems. To be honest, it took us the 100th and the 101st day of school to complete all of them, but it was great review of concepts we have covered this year (and a couple that we hadn't which made for a good challenge!)
Students were allowed to work in partners or by themselves. They had to show their work and approve their answer with me before they could add it to our 100's chart on the board. When we had completed the last 2 problems (which ended up taking the whole class' brain!) everyone got a prize (a new pencil because at this point in the year they ALL NEED one!) The best thing about this resource: it can be downloaded for FREE at TeachersPayTeachers.com. Follow this link to use it in your own classroom or click on the file picture below. (FYI... there is no answer key so either do some math practice yourself or leave your email in the comment section, and via email I'll show you my work!) My classes are all about cooperative learning and group work. That has especially become the case since I am using more math workshop model problem solving - rich math tasks solved first individually, then in a small group, and then shared with the class. This requires good communication and student talk. Not only am I experimenting with a new model of teaching, but I am helping facilitate a group of our staff that is working on student engagement and more specifically quality student talk. These two ideas have converged lately in my class. There are challenges with elementary students working with partners and small groups in the form of respectful listening and polite conversation (especially in my tiny physical space.) This is further complicated by a couple of my students who have identified challenges with social interactions. I want to build a place for discourse, but there is work to be done first. I find giving them concrete strategies for what group work and student talk "looks like" and "sounds like" tends to make our time together go more smoothly. We created an anchor chart at one point this year to help, but ultimately, I have found those strategies boil down to the four L’s: look, lean, listen, and lower voice. To that end, I have put up a new poster in my classroom that we are using as a reminder. And it turned out that using my last name made it a little quirky (see if you get my “joke!”) Like all amazing ideas in my classroom, the four L's are not my unique idea. While looking for videos for my staff development group, I found this video that I "stole" the idea from (at minute 4:30, the teacher presents the 4 L's.) |
Tracey BeanGifted and Talented Teacher Archives
July 2016
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