nanotechnology – Margaret Mohr-Schroeder

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!

IMG_4756 copy — 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.

IMG_4765 copy — 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.

IMG_4767 copy — 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.

Check out the Camp Pictures here

Check out videos Here

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – @seebluestemcamp

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.

After the longest school year in a while and some other area camps, it is finally time for the 2014 See Blue STEM Camp! We are so excited to have 144 campers this year…together…at the same time…in the same week (Craig and I may be greyer by the end of the week 🙂 )! Registration went very smooth this morning and we appreciate everyone’s patience in getting all the forms turned in, etc. You all rock!

We will post a blog post each night with some highlights from the day and some conversation starters. We’ll also post a link to the photos we are taking throughout the week.

Today the blue and red groups (rising 5-6th graders) headed to Dr. Robin Cooper’s (Dept of Biology) laboratory to do some neurobiology experiments today. They got to use iPads (Backyard Brains app – it’s free!) to collect data about muscle movements. Additionally they built some structures out of pipe cleaners that you should ask them about. Most of them fit in their sack packs and so you should be able to have them talk to you about it.

The yellow and green groups (rising 7th-8th graders) got to experience different aspects of nanotechnology with Dr. Brett Criswell from the Dept of STEM Education. They conducted several mini-experiments and were pretty wowed over by many of them! He was a definite favorite amongst the students today…hopefully the rest of the presenters live up to the high bar he has set today!

In robotics, both groups started by reverse engineering their robots. They were given a fully assembled robot and they had to disassemble it and re-assemble it. They always love this part, but we’re eager to continue moving them on to basic programming challenges. This year, the red and blue groups will be working with the NXT robots and the Green City Challenge. The yellow and green groups will be working with the EV3 robots and the newly-released Space Challenge. The yellow and green groups got a glimpse at the new programming software today and so that was pretty exciting for them.

We got so excited about watching the kids robots take shape that we forgot to snap some robotics pictures! We promise to do better tomorrow.

Your kids will be working in groups all week long. The robotics groups are teams of 2 and will stay the same all week long, while the other groups formed will vary throughout the week. As the “real world” continues to become more team-work oriented, we want to help our students grow in that direction as well. We hope your child gets to work with a variety of students this week and in turn meets some great new friends!

In their words… – Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ reflections of what they learned each day at the content session.

What I learned today…

Muscles contract and relax. When you get a muscle disease your muscles start to slow down and your heart stops and you can’t breathe. People who get it have to wear masks to breathe for them. I learned that you can record electrical activity from insects. (red/blue group)
I learned about how muscles work. That energy comes from your body. You could record energy going through your muscles. I did not know anything about muscles, but now I know about myosins. (red/blue group)
I found out that calcium chlorine and antacid make orbs. I learned that things that absorb water don’t absorb oil or vice versa. You can make magic sand water proof. I learned more about chemicals and chemical reactions. (green/yellow group)
Plants have waxy leaves to self clean. Peaches reflect water because of the peach fuzz. I learned about the practical uses of nanotechnology in everyday life, particularly when it comes to manipulating liquids. I learned that some materials repel water molecules. Nanotechnology and how it’s a world too small for the naked human eye to see. (green/yellow group)

What did you like about what you learned today…

My muscles conduct electricity. Seeing electricity in my arm with the iPad. It was awesome! Everything! I learned a lot and i really enjoyed it! The myosin heads and how they work. (red/blue group)
It is really cool to know college/high school level stuff. I liked testing my biceps with the meter. That muscles have electrical activity. (red/blue group)
It was interesting and fun. I liked being able to use my hands in everything. I actually enjoyed everything. I enjoyed how it was hands on and not just sitting and listening. (yellow/green group)
The magic sand repelled water. Everything, but the fabric and with special fibers was my favorite. I liked that we actually got to experiment. The experiments were cool and hands on. What i liked about nanotechnology was when the spheres expanded and when we took them out. i liked everything we did. I liked playing with the “magic” green sand. I thought it was very cool the way it worked. (yellow/green group)

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.

Red/Blue Groups (rising 5-6th graders):

I didn’t realize my body could conduct electricity…tell me more about that!
What was the pipe cleaner structure that you built? Tell me more about it.
What kind of tests did you conduct on your muscles? What were you testing? What were you looking for?

Yellow/Green Groups (rising 7-8th graders):

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!

Photo of the Day… – Each day we’ll post a photo collage highlight. Clicking on the picture will also link to all of the pictures taken at camp. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all of the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best too! 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 very well with posting to Twitter and taking photos today, but we promise to do better tomorrow!)

Tag: nanotechnology

Ending on a high note!

Day 1 is in the books!