Hands-on engineering projects using STEM objectives stimulate learning across the grades at St. Joseph Elementary

Friday, Jan. 20, 2017

OGDEN — The houses of straw and tape that Saint Joseph Elementary kindergarten students construct are the first step in a process that can lead to using orienteering skills to navigate through the mountains when they’re in eighth grade. Throughout their years at the school, their curriculum will incorporate STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) objectives into the Next-Generation Science Standards so that students not only answer correctly on tests, but are able to apply their learning to real-world problems.

The curriculum, which was fully implemented last school year, resulted in an approximate 12 percent increase on in eighth-grade math test scores, said Derek Tate, chairman of the school’s math department.

While science and engineering skills may seem advanced for kindergarten students, “If a 5-year-old can tell you the all the different dinosaurs … then throwing that higher academic vocabulary at them isn’t quite as daunting as it sounds,” said kindergarten teacher Erika Young. “You’re going to talk about scientific process and use the big words, but then you’re also going to simplify it.”

The vocabulary is repeated, not only in her class but throughout the grade levels, she said.

Although the kindergarten students are exposed to big words and concepts, they’re also taught the basics, including how to tear cellophane tape from the dispenser, how to gauge how many pieces of tape they might need for a project, and how to problem-solve in groups, Young said.

Before getting to the stage of constructing a house of straw and tape, however, the students will read The Three Little Pigs, draw a house, and determine the amount of straw they’ll need to build that house, she said. Along the way they’ll practice literature skills and learn about force and motion – although they’ll likely relate to it as “huff and puff and blow the house down.”

If the houses the students build do blow down, they discuss how they could remedy it. These types of experiments help students learn to think critically, Young said, and “because they’re building and because it’s creative, it’s fun for them.”

By fourth-grade, the students learn about a subject matter and then are “asked to apply a series of concepts that they’ve learned throughout the unit to engineer something that could meet those standards, that could solve a problem,” said Shannon Reichert, a fourth-grade teacher.

For example, her students recently learned about energy, then constructed a circuit that would activate a light and a buzzer simultaneously. They built the circuits using kits that had been purchased through an EIE (Engineering is Elementary) grant provided by the ALSAM Foundation. 

This project was the best so far this year, said fourth-grader Avery Costello, because “I’ve never worked with wires or anything, so it was really interesting to see how they worked. … I like doing the projects because you get to touch all the stuff and you get to experiment. And when you’re listening, it’s still fun, but you don’t get to touch all the things and move them around to see how they’re going to work.” 

Students strive to do well on homework, quizzes and other traditional schoolwork, but “they get very vested in their projects,” Reichert said. “To me, if you get kids interested in education, then you’ve solved half the problem.”

Tate, who estimates that 80 percent of his class is based on lecture, agrees that students seem to prefer doing the projects to traditional schoolwork. His sixth-graders are “stranded” on an island and must construct a structure that will withstand wind and rain, seventh-graders fabricate a coat that would be suitable to wear while climbing Mount Everest, and in eighth-grade they design a cooler that will keep malaria medication the correct temperature and still withstand the rigors of hiking to a remote village in Brazil. 

“I integrate lots of STEM stuff to try to make sure that we’re learning all the ‘how you put math and science together to get it to real life,”’ Tate said, whose eighth-grade honors class goes orienteering as their final project. “I think it makes it more enjoyable; I think they like it a little bit better than just sitting in class and doing worksheets.”