Day 3 See Blue STEM Camp

We had another wonderful day and the weather was great as well.  We were able to view the sun today through the clear sky thanks to Dr. Knauer bringing over his telescope during lunch.  We got out on campus and walked to the Minining and Mineral Resources Building for this viewing.
For our daily presentation Dr. Christa Jackson worked on spatial reasoning through several activities.  She had the students blindly draw pictures based on their partner’s directions, make a 3-dimensional object from several 2-dimensional pictures, and design a bridge out of limited materials and  describe their design to their classmates.  We had lots of great bridge designs out of straws and pipe cleaners.
In LEGO the students worked on the first three challenges for the Green City board.  This involved closing a dam and also raising a new clean energy smoke stack.  The students had to build upon their previous days work to program the robot to complete all of these tasks.
Tomorrow robotics will get more difficult in terms of challenges.  The students will have to navigate around objects in order to complete their tasks.  Dr. Robin Cooper from the Biology Department will be presenting on neurobiology in crayfish.  The students will be visiting his lab and working with his graduate students tomorrow.  We’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures!

Unbridled Learning: College and Career Readiness for All

Senate Bill 1 (2009) has a new name…Unbridled Learning: College and Career Readiness for All. As in everything education, I have acronym’d it…UBL. At University of Kentucky, we’re working on creating a resource page for everything around UBL/SB1. We have the basic structure and basic links up now: http://sites.education.uky.edu/sb1/

We’ll be adding lots more to it in the coming weeks. Enjoy!

Education Reform in Kentucky

http://tinyurl.com/3nqbag4

Here is a news clip on some of the Education Reform happenings going on in Kentucky. It is currently being aired on Cable Channel 2. Yes that’s me facilitating a workshop 8 months pregnant earlier this year!