We’re cruising right along this week. The students really have gotten into a nice groove already! They’ve really done well with teamwork and have conducted some great investigations already!
Today the blue and red groups ventured all the way across campus to discover things about their nervous system, look at the human organs in the medical science education center, and conduct some investigations around introreceptors, contracting muscles and other fun stuff!
The yellow and green groups took their turn with the UK engineering complex. Along with the different labs, they got to build some motors and use the engineering design process to investigate surface area and mass.
In robotics, both groups dove right into programming today! They started with some of our maze challenges and many jumped into the sensors and using the sensors. Tomorrow we have some more unique challenges up our sleeves! The students are paired up for the robotics and they have truly done a fabulous job of working together already! We always emphasize collaboration, taking turns, and talking through problem solving together; it’s really nice to see such great teamwork in action on Day 2 already!
In their words…
I learned you can create electricity with your arm
I learned that your fingers are more sensitive than your arm.
you have the ability to sense PH
Our muscles create electricity.
I really liked doing the crafrish activity because it gave a good understaing of sensitiveity + senses
I liked the tour becuase it explained alot about Engineering at UK.
most boats don’t sink because they have a large amount of volume
I liked going the the sound canceling room and the 3-D Printing room.
Conversation Starters
Red/Blue Groups
How do muscles in your arm move? What is the path of the signals?
How do you create electricity with your arm?
What was the most interesting thing you learned about the human organs today?
What did you want your robot to do today? How did you get your robot to do what you wanted it to do?
Yellow/Green Groups
Tell me about your plan for your boat you assembled today? What did you take into consideration? Did you change your plan at all?
What was your favorite part of the engineering tour? What did you learn about engineers today that you did not know before?
What did you want your robot to do today? How did you get your robot to do what you wanted it to do?
Photo of the Day…
Click the picture and it will take you to the weekly photo album. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best to though! Also we are STEM teachers and not full time photographers, so our pictures are not perfect and we leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free! If there is a photo you wish to have removed, please email me and we’ll take it down!
It’s hard to believe the week is already over! The students were really sad, but we made sure they had a great time (and were worn out!) by the time they left us today. It’s truly been an exciting week of discovery, adventure, and curiosity. The students were awesome! They were inquisitive. They explored. They tinkered. They built. They programmed. They persevered through challenges and celebrated their successes. We loved seeing the transformations!
WKYT and the Herald Leader stopped by today for a visit. The students were so excited to show off their knowledge and show them how things are done in “STEM” 🙂
They were in a chemistry lab with Dr. Kenneth Graham, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and his graduate students in the Don and Cathy Jacobs Science Building today and got to test out different types of solar panels and even created their own solar panel! They tested them inside and outside to see how much energy was needed to power a LED light. In robotics, they wrapped up the Green City Challenge…there were lots of cheering going on as there were many, many successes today!
Green/Yellow Groups
They got to use mathematical modeling to build bridges with Dr. Jonathan Thomas, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education. They got to use a variety of materials to first build the tallest tower they could, and then they built a bridge. They had to keep track of costs though on the bridge building; the goal was to hold at least 8 pounds. There were some fabulous designs! The students used the design engineering process to design, build, test, tweak, test, etc. their products. In robotics, they wrapped up the Space Challenge…just like the other groups there were many successes and lots of high fives, big smiles and cheering going on!
In their words…
Red/Blue Groups
“Black Berries can make a solar panel!”
“Nylon is in tooth brush bristles.”
(Do you want to know more about his topic? )”yes so I could possibly make my house solar powered.”
“I liked making the solar cell”
“I learned what chemists did, how nylon was made, and how to make a solar panel.”
“You can make a solar panel out of a blackberry!”
“I learned the chimist are more inportant than I thought.”
Yellow/Green Groups
“Paperclips are a really strong building material.”
“I learnd that quality is not all about how it looks”
“how diffrent stuctures effect the strength of towers and bridges”
“I liked when we got to test our bridge”
“We got to build bridges”
“How to make sure a bridge works”
“how diffrent stuctures effect the strength of towers and bridges”
Conversation Starters…
Blue/Red Groups
What is solar energy? What can it do for us?
What did you measure today using your multimeter? What did you find out?
Was there a difference in the panels you looked at today?
How did you create your own solar panel? Could you create one for our home?
What did you get your robot to do today? How did you do that?
What do you want to be when you grow up? How do you think STEM will help you in your career?
Yellow/Green Groups
What do bridges need to be strong?
How did you decide what materials to use for your bridge?
How did you decide on your design for your bridge?
How did your bridge do when you tested it?
How tall was your tower you built?
What did you get your robot to do today? How did you do that?
What do you want to be when you grow up? How do you think STEM will help you in your career?
Today was quite exciting with Dr. Jen Eli. She had the students create and experiment with several different optical illusions. Then she had them creating mathematical models (and other models!) with 3D pens. The students really enjoyed today’s creative outlet session; some probably brought some of the STEM art home with them today!
In robotics, they began their programming and started some basic challenges. While Lego has some really nice basic challenges to begin with, Mr. Evans and Mr. Randall like to change it up each year and provide students with challenges more appropriate towards the final challenge they will be doing at the end of the week. So today they worked on driving around curves without hitting walls. There were lots of great successes!
In their words…
What did you learn about today that you did not know before?
How to draw a art that tricks the eye. How to use a 3-d pen to make things
How neutral colors impact optical illusions.
That complementary colors are what mostly make illusions pop out
I learned about the parts of a 3-d pen
What did you like about what you learned today?
That optical allutions [sic] take the mind and eye to work
I liked learning about how 3-D pens work
I like making the 3d shapes
I used the 3-D pen to draw a shape and decorate it
Was there anything you did not like about what you learned today?
Nope! Except that we had to stop! I could have gone on forever!
No, i had a great time!
Would you like to learn more about this topic? Why or why not?
Yes, because it is AWESOME + FUN!
Yes because i want to learn more about what shapes you could do
Yes i like making 3d stuff
Yes because there’s so much to learn and it interests me
Conversation Starters…
What is an optical illusion?
How do colors affect optical illusions?
What did you make with the 3D pen?
How does the 3D pen work?
How could you use a 3D pen to build a model?
Photo of the Day… We took our STEM Camp photo today! Not all of our helpers are in here, but this is all the students and some of our helpers! Aren’t they a great looking bunch this week? Click here to view the rest of the photos from yesterday and today!
We had beautiful weather to kick off the first of our two weeks of 2016 UK See Blue STEM Camp! We are very excited to welcome 216 campers over the course of the next two weeks. Seventy-two of them started today. Registration went very well this morning and we really appreciate everyone’s patience in getting all the forms UK requires turned in. You all are awesome!
Just a note about the consent and assent forms that we ask for every year. Our camp is subsidized by an NSF grant that requires research and reporting to the agency. The purpose of the research is to develop a camp model that promotes STEM careers to adolescents and can be replicated. We also look at students attitudes towards STEM and the impact of our activities. We do not collect test scores or anything similar for your students nor do they have to be a Fayette County student to participate. Without this grant and consent and assent to participate the camp simply would not exist. We never report any names or any individual data…it’s always aggregated together!
We will post a blog post each night this week with some highlights from the day and some conversation starters. The conversation starters are meant to help you get over the “What did you learn today?” “Nothin’” or <shrugging the shoulders> we often see at the adolescent age. We’ll also post a link to the photos we are taking throughout the week. If at any time you want a photo removed that is of your child, please let us know and we’ll be happy to take it down.
Today the students split up and 1/2 saw Dr. Bruce Walcott and the other 1/2 saw Dr. Isabel Escobar. (If you like TED talks, you can view hers here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-wbHD77kMWE) In both sessions students were immersed in the wonderful world of engineering…using their hands to build and explore just as engineers do.
In robotics, students started by engineering their robots. They got to build their robot and get to know it. They always love this part, but we’re eager to continue moving them on to basic programming challenges. We have some exciting new challenges planned for them this week!
In their words… Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ reflections of what they learned each day at the STEM Content session.
Dr. Walcott – What I learned today…
We used a slinky as a demonstration of sound waves.
I learned that the first woman that graduated from engineering helped invent AC.
I learned that weight matters less than volume when it comes to making boats.
I would like to be an engineer.
The testing of new designs.
Dr. Escobar – What I learned today…
That if you mix a type of powder and water and turn whatever you put it in upside down it will not spill.
I liked that we did hands-on things instead of just talking about it.
You got to play and touch it and experiment with it.
I liked that we got to learn things chemical engineers get to experience.
I want to learn more about the powder and water because it was really cool watching the powder form into a solid.
I liked that we got to do the experiments that went with the lesson.
Conversation Starters… We know that your child is getting to the age where it might be like pulling teeth to get them to talk about their day beyond “It was fine.” “It was fun.” Each day we’ll post some suggested conversation starters centered on camp activities or STEM-related themes.
Dr. Walcott:
Tell me about how you assembled your robot. Did you follow instructions? Did you just try to figure out what parts went together?
Is there a particular field of engineering that you think might interest you?
How many pennies did your boat hold? If you could build it again, what would you do differently?
Dr. Escobar:
What happened when you mixed the powder and water and turned it upside down?
What does a chemical engineer do?
Is there a particular field of engineering that you think might interest you?
Photo of the Day… Each day we’ll post a camp highlight. Clicking on the picture will also link to all of the pictures taken at camp – It’s not working right now because I forgot to bring the camera home to download the pictures. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best to though! Also we are STEM teachers and not full time photographers, so our pictures are not perfect and we leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free! (We did not do too well at taking pictures today with it being day 1, but we promise to do better tomorrow!)
It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the end of the week! Today was an even busier day since it was the end of the week and the students were extra alive today from all the activity this week. The blue and red and groups got to experience Dr. Brett Criswell’s wonderful awe-inspiring world of nanotechnology. From experimenting with peach fuzz and different types of plants, to talking about polymer-chains found in over-the-counter indigestion medicines, the students were taken to the teeny tiny world of nano-land. They had a great time conducting different experiments and even remembered such things as Congo Red! In robotics, they wrapped up an awesome week with finishing many challenges in the green city challenges. There were lots of screams of excitement, joy, and high fives going around as the students became more communicative within their groups and more confident in their programming skills. We tried to capture some video of it today. Clicking on the video will take you to our YouTube Channel where you can view more videos from today.
The yellow and green groups got to experience the wonderful world of engineering with our resident engineering expert, Dr. Bruce Walcott. The students got to tour the engineering complex at UK and got to go into many of the different laboratories that UK College of Engineering has. There were faculty and graduate students onsite in the laboratories so they were able to show the students some of their latest research discoveries and experiments and let the students tinker with some of the lab materials as well. Seeing real research happening is always inspiring to the students and they really ask great questions that sometimes even stump the researchers! Of course the favorite again was the sound proof room. I’m not sure what it is about that room, but they always enjoy it! They also built mini motors and talked about simple machines with Dr. Walcott. They really enjoyed the various engineering design activities and applying their content skills. They ended their engineering time with some teamwork activities, including the favorite Hula Hoop Challenge. Students often forget that in the real world, most of our work is done in teams and communication is vitally important. So the students had a great time learning to communicate and talk to each other more.
Lego robotics for the yellow and green groups was much more successful today. We even had a couple of groups do all the challenges on the Space Challenge! The Space Challenge and EV3 programming is definitely a lot different from the NXT programming, so some were frustrated a couple of days ago, but were much more confident today. It was such a joy to watch them grow over the past week in this area. They really enjoyed the Space Challenge…it is definitely more complex than the Green City they were used to before!
We all had such a great and enjoyable week with the students. It would not at all have been possible without the tremendous staff that we had this year! I had a bit of a panic moment when (because of snow days) we decided to combine both camps into one week; but some quick creative thinking brought on an awesome opportunity for our preservice teachers in our middle and secondary programs and our doctoral students at UK. Some of the college students took a Robotics class with me prior to camp starting and assisted Mark Evans and Robbie Randall in the robotics rooms and some of the college students just wanted to help out with the camp. I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to and thank our staff this year.
We have a great group of graduate students in the STEM Education department at UK and these 5 are no exception!
L-R Back – Kayla Blyman, Floyd Broughton, Thomas Roberts; L-R Front – Maranda Miller, Marla Lemmon
Our inservice teachers are priceless! Robbie and Mark take the lead on the robotics, Brooke (Green Group), Tavin (Yellow Group), Megan (Blue Group), and Candice (Red Group) were our team leaders this year, of course Craig is the inventor, creator, and director of the See Blue STEM Camp. The camp is a way for our inservice teachers to stay connected to the university, provide high quality mentoring to the preservice teachers involved, and even have the opportunity to engage and learn new content and materials alongside the students.
L-R Back – Robbie Randall (Beaumont MS), Mark Evans (Jessie Clark MS), Candice Cprek (Henry Clay HS); L-R Front – Brooke Powers (Beaumont MS), Tavin Feheley (Jessie Clark MS), Craig Schroeder (Beaumont MS). Not pictured – Megan Vogel (Tates Creek MS)
Since we were going to 1 week with 144 students, we knew we had needed to have more help. It was an obvious choice to offer the opportunity to the preservice (future teachers) middle and secondary mathematics and science students in our College. Through this unique experience, they got to work with the students in a smaller, low-stakes setting that allowed them to really practice their classroom management skills, their questioning techniques, and work on developing appropriate relationships with students. They were mentored through this process by the high quality inservice teachers as well as the college faculty we had involved. Although they were exhausted by the end of the week, they all stated this was the best learning experience they have had thus far and really enjoyed the opportunity to grow as future educators and felt they gained a lot of STEM content knowledge alongside the students as well.
L-R Back – Andre Henderson, Brian True, Alex Freeman, William Schooler, Michael Delfino, Eric Garwood, Zeke Edwards; L-R Middle – Ben Wolfe, Maria Richards, Brittney Denton, Lydia Speler, Amy Allen, Tyler Waters, Chris Rogers, Clay Rehmel, Shelby Cameron; L-R Front Row Katherine Poe, Alanna Briggs, Jamie Kosel, Michael Plas
Craig, myself, Christa Jackson, Mark Evans, Gabe Brown, and Bruce Walcott are the team that make up the directors of the camp. We do everything from logistics to food to parent communication to anything else that needs to be done to help things run smoothly.
L-R Craig Schroeder, Christa Jackson, and Margaret Schroeder; Not pictured- Mark Evans, Bruce Walcott, and Gabe Brown (they were making sure everything was running smoothly while we were snapping pictures!)
Conversation starters…
Red and Blue Groups
What is nanotechnology?
What kinds of things repel water? Why do they need to repel water?
How do you make magic sand?
Peaches reflect water? I’ve never heard about that. Tell me more!
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?
Yellow and Green Groups
What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
What was your favorite lab you visited? What made it your favorite?
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Space Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?
Video of the Day… This video really exemplifies why we do this and why we feel it’s important for students to have these opportunities.
We thank you for a wonderful week with your students and hope you have an enjoyable rest of the summer!
Next year’s camp dates are tentatively set for June 8 – 12, 2015 at the University of Kentucky Colleges of Education and Engineering for rising 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.
