creativity and STEM projects

Today marks my 10 month anniversary of when I started here at Sticks Library! I can't believe how fast the time has flown by and how much fun I've had since I started, and so many fun things ahead of us! 

Thought I would share some more Summer Reading fun (since I was so remiss about doing it during SR!)

A big push in libraries and schools in the past couple of years has been projects which fall under the category of S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)--as we all know the U.S. is so painfully behind the rest of the 1st world in these subjects--so Prairie Dawn and I scheduled S.T.E.M. projects for K-12th graders one day every week during our 6 weeks of summer reading. I say we, but all I did was put it on the calendar and Prairie Dawn did an awesome job of finding interesting projects for the both groups, which we split up into K-6th, and 7th-12th grades.
Simple fun on our Make & Take Monday: water bottle bubble makers

Not a S.T.E.M. project, but rather one of our Make & Take home crafts that the kids loved was the Bottle Bubble Blowers!

Directions:

1. Cut off the end of a water bottle (do in advance, too hard for younger crowd).
2. Have the kids take their water bottle and stretch a clean sock over the missing bottom.
3. Using duct tape, tape around the sock, so that it stays attached to the bottle.
4. Go outside and mix Dawn dish soap and a little water in flat dishes--go easy on water. Add lots of food coloring for rainbow bubbles.
5. Dip the sock end into your soapy water mix.
6. Unscrew the lid and blow into your bottle--DO NOT SUCK IN or else you're eating bubbles!

STEM Science day: team building exercise--the egg drop!
 The Egg Drop:
This was definitely an interesting STEM experiment to watch. We counted the kids (K-6) off into teams and asked the parents to help them build a shelter for their uncooked eggs which would protect the egg when we dropped it from the top of a 7ft. ladder. The catch is there are only 4 things to build it with: each group received 50 straws, 12 popsicle sticks, tape, and shoot, I forget the other things...but you get the point!
We encouraged parents to let the kids trouble shoot it--some hover parents definitely took over, some kids were bossy, some kids had awesome ideas. It was fun and the kids loved counting down and watching Prairie Dawn and I drop the egg holders. Everyone's eggs survived the drop onto the grass...not so for the drop over the sidewalk. We had fried eggs on the sidewalk that very hot day!

STEM Science day for the Teens: they made
Eukaryotic cells out of junk food.

Trying CELLing this to the Teens
Not sure where Prairie Dawn got this idea--she used Pinterest quite a bit, so maybe there--but she gave the teens a diagram of a Eukaryotic cell and junk food galore to build their own, while discussing different cells and all things sciency. A fun STEM project, fo sho!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"howl the eternal yes"

Image
Just read a CNN article this morning about the Aurora Borealis making an appearance. It reminded me of Northern Exposure and Chris the DJ. So, thought I would share a quote as I reminisce about the Aurora Borealis, a.k.a. The Northern Lights, which I saw my first year at the Farm in Massachusetts, which I actually saw on my 23rd birthday!--the best birthday present I ever got!! "There's a dark side to each and every human soul. We wish we were Obi-Wan Kenobi, and for the most part we are, but there's a little Darth Vader in all of us. Thing is, this ain't no either-or proposition. We're talking about dialectics, the good and the bad merging into us. You can run but you can't hide. My experience? Face the darkness. Stare it down. Own it. As brother Nietzsche said, being human is a complicated gig. So give that ol' dark night of the soul a hug. Howl the eternal yes!" ~ Chris, Northern Exposure, "Aurora Borealis (A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups).” It feel...
Read more

sample retirement acceptance letter

Image
The hardest part of being the Director in a small library is that we don't have an HR person, so on top of everything else we do we also get to do the paperwork for the new hires, and retires. Thank God for the internet or these processes would take a lot longer!  One of my board members pointed out that though I'd been informed of staff retirements, I had to officially accept them with a letter...I am finding that a paper trail is an important thing. So, I found a short and simple letter on one university's HR website (sorry forgot which!?) and honed it to work for us. Attached is my sample of a retirement letter.  Is anyone else out there going through this process too?
Read more

eggnog with lighter fluid and other cherished Christmas memories

Image
I started digging to find my favorite Christmas-esque scenes/lines from movies and I was pleased with what I found. In spirit of my 14's lists, here goes: 1. Charles De Mar: "Ah, come on! It's Christmas Eve! I could be home right now, drinking this *monster* eggnog my brother makes with lighter fluid." ~ Better Off Dead I also love the present opening scene on Christmas day, where his mother is dressed like a reindeer, his father gets an ardvark jacket and the kids get freezer dinners. Pan out to the neighbors Christmas when the French foreign exchange student gets a framed picture of Ricky. I LOVE THIS MOVIE! 2. When Zuzu says to George Bailey, "Look, daddy! Teacher says, every time a bell rings, an Angel gets his wings." George quietly agrees, "Attaboy, Clarence," as "Auld Lang Syne" rings out. That scene makes me cry everytime. (I also love that if George had never been around, Mary became a spinster librarian--see pic) ~ It's a W...
Read more