1st Graders at Sauganash Elementary School explore STEM concepts as they work collaboratively to design and build various structures as part of their STEAM Park activity. Thanks to a generous grant from ChangeX and current research highlighting the benefits of learning through play, students are able to exercise their problem solving skills in a cooperative setting.
Students worked in groups and were tasked with helping rebuild some of the STEAM Park (Lego Education’s fictional amusement park) rides and amusements after a bad storm. Students navigated following directions and problem solving as well as exploring basic force and motion concepts.
In addition, this program will serve as a scaffold for our Robotics program. Currently, Sauganash has a robotics team that looks forward to competing for the second year. Our program is through FIRST LEGO League. Our 5th-8th graders participate in FIRST LEGO Challenge and our 1st graders are now participating in FIRST LEGO League Discover. As we continue to build our program, our next steps will be to include our 2nd-4th graders in the FIRST LEGO League Explore and students will become increasingly familiar with the skills and core values essential to further their education and career opportunities in Robotics.
1st Graders are working on figuring out how the height of a ramp effects the distance a car travels.
Our plan for getting our project started includes purchasing 4 Steam Park Sets. Our class sizes can be large, and we want to make sure we can accommodate up to 32 students. We will also use the seed money to to pay for our Team Registration and a seat for one teacher at the First Lego League (FLL) Discover Professional Development.
Our COVID-19 safety plan will follow our district's guidelines. Currently that allows us to meet in person and masks are optional. However, if the situation changes, we are also set up to meet remotely using Google Meet. We also use Google Meet for students who are required to quarantine due to being a close contact or testing positive for COVID-9.
Our school and community will benefit from this project because we are working on building a robotics pipeline so that students have opportunities to learn and become familiar with the FLL programs and begin participating at a young age. Our hope is to build capacity so that students and staff are better able to support these students and prepare them for their continued participation in FLL and robotics in general as they move on to high school.
