I helped out at 2 after school STEM programs this week.
The first was Linton Stockton Elementary.
We had 25 kids from grades 3-5 for just under an hour. They got to work with the Root robot and SpheroSPRK+. They used their own Chromebooks to code root , because it is browser based. They had to use some District Chromebooks because an app had to be installed.
They were very excited to work with these robots that they can make do so many things.
(Root : https://edu.irobot.com/what-we-offer/root-robot
(coding root https://code.irobot.com/#/
(Sphero SPRK+ has been discontinued, replaced by Bolt https://sphero.com/collections/coding-robots/products/sphero-bolt
Then 40 k-2 descended upon us. (The STEM director didnt know it was going to be that many).
We had 5 Code & Go Mouse setups and 6 BeeBots. These are screen free. The hardest part of the mouse is it remembers what you put in. Students like to move it forward one, then decide to turn and press a turn arrow, then press go. It goes forward 1 and turns….but they didnt move it back to the start. They think that it will do what they just told it to do, not understanding the memory aspect. It takes a while to catch on.
Those of you that know the age level, know this is not enough equipment. We had to have groups of 4, which didnt work great. But we all got through it, they got to make the mouse/beebot do something, had fun…
(BeeBot https://www.eduporium.com/bee
(Code & Go mouse https://www.learningresources.com/item-code-gor-robot-mouse-activity-set
The second school visit was to Lakeview Elementary and our afterschool STEM club. We are working with their nature trail. Last month we walked through it and got some waypoints of key locations. Today was the day for them to get some ideas on paper about signs we need for these locations. Then we went for a walk on the trail This time we took the Fire Station Trail. Which didnt take very long. So we walked around the school, noting which direction we were facing/going (NESW) and talked about where would be good places to put in raised beds to grow plants. We talked about where the sun came up and how long the spot would get sun. Hopefully we can build some beds this year and grow some things (in addition to marking the trail.
I need more waypoints to get a better map.
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