Incorporating STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) learning is essential to foster so-called interpersonal skills, such as critical thinking, perseverance, communication, and creative problem solving. Purposeful STEM education should begin in the early grades where these key skills can begin to develop. With the ongoing support of SME training and mentoring, even the most reluctant teachers can implement STEM instruction with students of all ages and learning abilities.
To help teachers add more STEM learning experiences for their students, the award-winning My power kits The curriculum provides highly engaging, standards-aligned, and hands-on design challenges, activities, and lessons. This online collection of over 407 standards-based lesson plans incorporates 3d printrobotics, sensors, and virtual simulations that promote deep conceptual understanding to prepare the next generation of engineers, mathematicians, and scientists for the challenges they will face.
New kits, lessons, and design challenges are added regularly in response to interest from teachers and students.
Newer STEM Kits
- Artifacts: Americas Kit – Students in grades K-12 can explore artifacts from the Americas. The kit features dozens of artifacts from North, South, and Central America and some Pacific islands, including Rapa Nui and Hawaii.
- Dynamic Carts Kit – Designed to fit the lab disk portable STEM lab, this cart will allow students in grades K-12 to explore a wide variety of physics topics. Students can attach spring scales or string holes to the front and back and add weights to the large body. This kit also includes a pulley system setup to create a Half-Atwood machine.
- Circuit Diagram Kit – Students in grades 6-12 can do some disconnected circuit planning with this desk-sized kit, using the pieces with a whiteboard to plan their circuits on paper before building and testing them.
- Free Body Diagram Kit – High school students can explore free body diagrams with this portable kit. They can add short or long arrows to represent different forces acting on the body.
The newest one lesson plans
- friction forces – Students in grades 9-12 will explore the force of friction between two different surfaces. They will seek to understand what factors influence friction and determine the coefficients of friction for various materials. In this two-part lesson, students will work with static friction and explore kinetic friction using the dynamic cart and lab disc portable STEM lab.
- Specific heat – Using Labdisc, students in grades 9-12 will learn how energy in the form of heat can be measured. They will investigate how thermal energy can be transferred by conduction through a simple hands-on experiment and then will be tasked with considering the relationship between heat and energy efficiency in everyday products.
- RC circuits – In this lesson, students in grades 6-12 will explore how capacitors can charge and discharge at different rates using resistors of different sizes to control the flow. The Labdisc will be used to measure the voltage change during charge and discharge.
- unknown resistance – In this lesson, students in grades 8-12 will use the light sensor on the Labdisc to determine if there is a linear relationship between the resistance and brightness of an LED light. They will then use their data to predict the value of an unknown resistor based on the brightness of the LED light in the circuit with it.
New design challenges
- Custom Clock Coding – In this Tinkercad code block design challenge, students in grades 4 and 6 are challenged with a customer-driven project. Using a code sample, they should work to design a code-controlled clock. Throughout the project, they will be challenged to understand and use code-based logic variables and systems, express relationships through equations and unit rates, and meet customer demands.
- excavator blade – Students in grades 6-12 are tasked with designing and testing an attachment to convert their mybot into an excavator that can move rocks with ease. In doing so, they will investigate forces and Newton’s laws of motion in this open-ended challenge. Combine this design challenge with the MyBot activity Rocks on Mars in motion for a deeper exploration of forces and motion.
- home on the moon – This interactive project is great for students, families, and/or collaborative teams to understand how systems work on Earth and how they can be modified to work on the Moon. So, in this Aldrin Family Foundation ShareSpace activity, build the ideal moon base in Tinkercad for 3D printing!
The importance of implementing quality, innovative STEM activities and lessons into the curriculum is made clear by the growing need for STEM-trained personnel in the workforce. MyStemKits and easy to use mimioSTEM solutions, help make the implementation and integration of STEM lessons, activities and projects seamless.
To learn more about MyStemKits, click here: MyStemKits STEM Curriculum.
To explore MimioSTEM solutions for K-12, click here: mimioSTEM.
