We made lava lamps and levers at @PortfolioK12’s annual community Halloween party today. Here are some notes and pics. #MakerEd #elemaker #STEAM

I had a great time participating in Portfolio School‘s annual community Halloween event for both neighborhood families and children who attend the school! Here are links and descriptions of the two activities we offered for participants:

1. Lever art inspired by @RobIves — Jeannette of Portfolio School kindly used their laser cutter to pre-cut cardboard into rectangles per Rob Ives’s template. We offered children the option to make a simple lever or lever with linkage and used construction paper, markers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and glue sticks to create their design. I made an example with a flying pumpkin over a pumpkin patch, but then a lot of children wanted to copy it, so I made another example with of plain cardboard lever ready to be decorated.
2. Lava Lamps by SteamPoweredFamily.com — Jeannette and Katarina of Portfolio School went to town facilitating this activity! We had a popsicle stick with a line drawn across it to estimate how much water to first add to the jar. Then kids added oil, food coloring, glow in the dark powder, and a teaspoon of white powder (which was a mixture of 2 parts baking soda to 1 part citric acid — alternatively, Alka Seltzer tabs would work as well to jumpstart the fizzy reaction). I appreciated that Katarina and Jeannette encouraged the children to try different combinations of colors and different amounts of oil or mixture or UV powder. Prototyping!

Photos of the Lava Lamp activity:

Photos of the Levers activity:

Movie of Amanda Grutza’s flame thrower!

Photos of Portfolio’s awesome learning spaces, Makerspace, and classrooms:

“Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch Instruments” shared notes at @Teach21c. #MakerEd

I’m leading a Teach21 professional development workshop this afternoon, Cardboard, MakeyMakey, and Scratch Instruments. Here’s the description:
By adding the Arts to traditional STEM goals, (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), we can embrace design, creativity, and integration and discuss interdisciplinary possibilities. Let us embrace STEAM by crafting cardboard instruments with conductive elements, programming notes and sounds in Scratch, and using the MakeyMakey to provide interactivity while discussing other project ideas and opportunities.

Click here to go directly to the webpage of shared notes or see the embedded document below:

Awesome Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch instruments from our @teach21c workshop this afternoon. #MakerEd #STEAM pic.twitter.com/jsJKIMymPx

— Karen Blumberg (@KarenBlumberg) June 21, 2016

 

Cardboard @MakeyMakey @Scratch clarinet from our @teach21c workshop this afternoon. #MakerEd #edtech pic.twitter.com/oKvrQKUm2W

— Karen Blumberg (@KarenBlumberg) June 21, 2016

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5th grade hacks Greek constellations in a circuitry project. @The_School #scichat #artsed #5thchat

I have enjoyed spending the last ten years  collaborating with intelligent, creative, and willing colleagues at The School at Columbia University. Though I mainly worked with middle school teachers and students, I was often asked for help, guidance, or partnership from teachers in  the other grades. I always assisted anyone (parents, teachers, students) which helped me build community, connect people and ideas to each other as a de facto curriculum coordinator, hone my craft, and simply share all the stuff I’ve gathered and learned from my amazing network and the ideas being shared via Twitter, meet ups, conferences, workshops, and casual conversations.

Yoshiko Maruiwa is one of my favorite colleagues. After hearing I was leaving The School next year to join The Brearley School as their inaugural K-12 Technology Coordinator, Yoshiko asked if we could do one final project together in her 5th grade Art classes. I knew the students had recently completed an electronics and circuitry unit in science with Monique Rothman, and they’d studied Ancient Greece in Social Studies (including participating in a grade-wide Olympics). So, it wasn’t a big stretch to imagine having the 5th graders use the existing stars of Greek constellations to re-conceptualize their designs. I had originally intended for LED lights to be connected via wires that students would cut to size and connect into parallel circuits, but there wasn’t enough time. Instead, we used a lot of expensive copper tape.

Building water rocket launchers with @bendickraikes in 6th science at @The_School

@BenedickRaikes is the 6th grade science teacher at The School at Columbia University and an extraordinary colleague. He was inspired to build water rocket launchers this semester. In preparation for that, he purchased a book, Make: Rockets, and a Water Rocket Launcher kit from Maker Shed. (Update: these kits do not seem to be currently available…)

After assembling the kit’s prototype, Ben felt much better about asking 6th graders to build their own water rocket launchers as well. We purchased all of the parts using the supplies list from the book (also on the DIY project website). Most of the materials came from Lowe’s, and this process was made substantially easier as the book includes all of the parts numbers. Other bits and bobs were sourced from Amazon and the neighborhood hardware store.

Ben and I thought it would be fun if the students were to “place an order” at Lowe’s for the materials, so we shared the shopping list with them. Students were tasked with filling out a spreadsheet in math class that included space for them to insert an image of each part and an area for them to tally the cost of the project. See below:

This week, 6th graders assembled their water rocket launchers using plans from Make Magazine: http://makezine.com/projects/water-rocket-launcher Students were divided into 4 groups of about 4-5 students. Each group had a faculty mentor at their table — 6th Grade Math Teacher Catherine Hildebrandt (@KKleinNYC), Math Associate Jazmin Sherwood, Intermediate Division Principal Kevin Fittinghoff, and me — which left Ben to float from group to group offering help and guidance. We had to saw PVC and wood, join pieces with epoxy or PVC primer and cement, assemble materials, work with drills, screwdrivers, utility knives, pliers, clamps, and more.

After two days of constructing rocket launchers, students were asked to fill out a self-reflection feedback sheet with the following questions:

1. Did you enjoy the rocket launcher building project? Give reasons.
2. What was your favorite part of the project?
3. What did you find difficult or challenging?
4. Did you learn anything new doing this activity?
5. What are your thoughts about working in a group of 4 or 5 children?
6. Would you be interested in doing a project like this again? What would you chose to build? (Realistic suggestions only please!)

Tomorrow students will have a soft launch (pun intended!) of their rockets. On Monday, the grade will gather together in the park for the official launch and to compare results.

After seeing my tweet about our project, Chris Casal (@Mr_Casal) shared a link to a wonderful video highlighting the work of Christine Boyer (@5boyer) and her 5th graders who launched rockets last year. Christine also provided a wonderful documentation of the project here, and she recently presented her class’s work at the National Science Teachers Assocation‘s annual conference!

LIFTOFF TO LEARNING from Ralph King, Hawkview Pictures on Vimeo.