November's STEM Dog Challenge is Due!

Hi Friends-

This is STEM Dog with a friendly reminder that the results of your November STEM Dog Challenge are due by Tuesday, November 25th. 

Remember to either share your picture with me using your google drive or send your picture via email to mary.t.hansen@student.dodea.edu.

I can't wait to see your toilet paper roll structures.

The Disney Challenge

The fifth grade students have been challenged to design a theme park ride that meets a set of predetermined criteria. The students have been busy planning the ride and writing the necessary lines of code. Stay tuned for updates as the plans turn into reality and the students construct an automated prototype. In the meantime, be sure to view today's video which shows how one fifth grade class approached the initial design phase of this project!
http://grade5stem.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-disney-challenge.html

The Disney Challenge Part 1

Dear amusement park engineers,

You have been hired by the Walt Disney World corporation to design a prototype of a new amusement park ride called "It's a Bee's Life." The corporation envisions a track system where cars, shaped like bees, carry small children through a maze in search of a honey pot. They want the bees to move both forwards and backwards while making both left and right turns. In the middle of the maze, they would like the bee to pause so that the children can see an image of a 3-dimensional beehive. Since they don't want to waste time between unloading one group of children and loading the next group of children, the entrance and exit of the ride should be near each other, but not at the same point. At some point in the ride, the bee should make a complete (360 degree) rotation. The ride is designed for small children, so the duration of the ride may not exceed 40 lines of code.  The Walt Disney corporation looks forward to seeing your designs.

The Cup Stacking Challenge

Could you stack 6 cups without touching them? Watch as these fourth grade students do just that, using a rubber band, string, and lots of collaboration, cooperation, communication, and critical thinking!

Earthquake-Proof Structures

 Could you create a two story tall building using only toothpicks and marshmallows that could withstand the force of a simulated earthquake for one minute? Lakes take a peek at how the students in Mrs. Fairfax's class approached this challenge.

BES Bulldogs Program Bee-Bots!

The fourth grade Bulldogs have been programming Bee-Bots to follow some difficult paths. There were five levels of difficulty, and each level became more challenging than the level before. Each time the students wrote the correct code and the Bee-Bot completed a course, they could move on to the next level. Once the students finished all five levels, they could make up their own course for their Bee-Bot.

The hardest part about programming Bee-Bots was deciding which direction the Bee-Bot should turn, because sometimes the Bee-Bot was not facing the same direction that the programmer was facing.

The best part about programming Bee-Bots was seeing if they actually went the way you thought they would go.

Everyone had fun programming the Bee-Bots and we hope that the fourth grade students will get another chance to program the Bee-Bots!

Written By Two Bee-Bot Fans!

The Two Bee-Bot Fans (and Guest Bloggers)

21st Century Teaching and Learning

Have you ever wondered what 21st Century education looks and sounds like? Take a peek as Mr. Stone's and Ms. McCool's science classes explore the craters on the moon. I wish my fourth grade science class had been set up like this!  http://besstem.blogspot.com/

Investigating the Moon's Surface Grade 4

Ever wonder how the craters on the moon were formed? The fourth grade students are in the process of completing a series of investigations into this very questions. 

Watch as the students in Mr. Stone's class investigate whether the size of the object that hits the moon has an affect on the size of the crater.

Ms. McCool's Class has some insightful observations about the relationship between meteor size and crater size. Perhaps these are the aerospace engineers of the future!

We Have Levitation!

Several weeks ago, the fifth grade students were tasked with creating a prototype of a magnetic levitation system  that could successfully carry a load of washers.  The young transportation engineers designed and created their trains, tested their systems, took notes about what seemed to be working and what needed to be modified, and ultimately went back to the drawing board to improve their MagLev systems.  The MagLev systems went through numerous iterations, which caused some angst with our young engineers. However, after over a month of testing and redesign, the teams finally achieved success. 

Designing a Suspension Bridge Grade 5

These fifth grade students were challenged to create a suspension bridge that could support the 16 grams of weight using only a single piece of copy paper and two math books. Not a problem for our young engineers!

They were then challenged to improve their bridge so that it could hold the greatest possible weight. One team was actually able to support more than 1,000 grams using only a piece of paper and two math books. Pretty impressive!