Looking for some fun activities for prekindergarten students and their families to do from home?  Stuck on what to do for remote learning?  Check out these fun and simple hands-on activities for shadow exploration!

Underrepresented minorities and women in STEM need GRACE. Incorporating GRACE into our middle and high school lessons will help students successfully make the transition from high school to college, and college to career. In this session, we will explore the five elements that could help students combat the frequently reported obstacles faced by STEM college students; such as racial bias, feelings of isolation, difficult coursework, and lack of mentors. GRACE represents skills that K - 12 educators can explicitly teach students to ensure their future success in a STEM field.

Project Summary
In this lesson students will learn about electromagnetic energy through a female engineer who invented frequency hopping that is used by so many devices we use daily. Students will explore and solve a real world problem by designing a device to block or build a stronger Wi-Fi signals. Each team will record their work with Flip.
Driving Questions / Scenario (what are we trying to solve or improve?)

What is the electromagnetic spectrum?
Which part of the electromagnetic spectrum does Wi-Fi use?
What materials do you think will block a Wi-Fi signal? What materials do you think will let a Wi-Fi signal pass through?
Literacy Connection
Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor
By: Laurie Wallmark
Subject(s)

6th grade science, computer science, engineering, ELA, History
Standard(s) Addressed

Sc- - 6.P.1 Understand the properties of waves and the wavelike property of energy in earthquakes, light and sound. 6.P.3 Understand characteristics of energy transfer and interactions of matter and energy.
ISTE - 1.1.b, 1.2.b, 1.3.d, 1.4.a-d, 1.5.b, 1.6.d,1.7.d, 1.7.c

After learning about types of simple machines, students create one with recyclables in order to 'rescue' a small figurine by moving it 10 feet.  

Students will be given a task to complete such as popping a balloon. They will be required to create a simple machine with 5-7 moving parts, made from common household materials, to complete the task. Leading up to this project, students will have learned about simple machines and Rube Goldberg. This project will help students be able to explain how simple machines such as inclined planes, pulleys, levers and wheel and axels are used to create mechanical advantage and increase efficiency. (7.P.2.4) The team of students that creates the machine that completes the task in the most whimsical way will be awarded a certificate.

In this hands-on STEM lesson, students will learn the requirements of making an electrical circuit and will design a switch to control a circuit. They will also investigate the differences between series and parallel circuits. They will apply their knowledge in a final task to design and build a signaling device.

Students work in groups of 3 or 4 to create a solar oven out of a pizza box. Students are trying to figure out the best way to make a solar oven in order to melt the chocolate and marshmallow in the S’more. Students will be given a group of objects and basic instructions on how to create a solar oven. The oven will need to be placed in direct sunlight for most of the day. This experiment works best on a very hot, sunny day.

In this design challenge, students will harness the power of the sun to design, construct and evaluate a solar-powered model car of their creation. Students will utilize the design process and select an optimal gear ratio and components for their car.

With James Cameron's historic DEEPSEA CHALLENGE dive, students will investigate pressure, biological adaptations, and the engineering process through hands-on activities. Students will design an underwater vehicle that can withstand both heat and cold. They will also engineer a model vessel that can rise slowly to the surface from a depth of 3 meters under water.

Students will learn and understand the design process by designing and engineering the ultimate playground. What is the design process? Read Someone Builds the Dream by Lisa Wheeler and Loren Long and Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. Discussion about dreams, goals, and reality.
Discussion about the design process and how to use it to design your dream
playground.
Discussion about what was created in each book. Write on poster paper. Make connections between dreams and reality.
Could we dream up a better playground (or school)? How do we make it a reality?

Students work in groups of 2 to create a sound room out of a collection of materials provided by the teacher and then selected by the students. Students will test their sound rooms periodically to determine if their structure has the ability to dampen or even completely eliminate a tone, or ringtone emitted from a cell phone that is turned to max. The goal is for students to rearrange and recombine materials until they have achieved sound cancellation, dampening the waves emitted from the cell phone to a degree that the tone is inaudible. The efficacy of the sound rooms will be checked by a decibel meter on an iPad or Android device (free app easily acquired in an app store). Students will check the decibel reading before their structure is placed over top of the cell phone and then after - comparing the drop in decibels. They will track their results on a document as they hopefully observe the efficiency of their structure improving over time and with each test. One important constraint, the students are limited by a budget. The materials will be “purchased” from an in class store utilizing “real world” pricing.

In this STEM activity, students are challenged to solve a real-world problem that is part of the space program using creativity, cleverness, and scientific knowledge, while learning about forces, structures, and energy transfer. The goal is to construct a launcher that can withstand the force of repeatedly launching a one-kilogram bottle of water one meter into the air.

In this STEM activity, students use the engineering design process to build a structure to handle the greatest load. They also gain first-hand experience with compression and tension forces when they test the factors affecting the strength and stability of a structure. Using the design process, students will identify the problem, brainstorm, design, buiild, test, and share their solutions. Lastly, they will measure and record the strength and amount of weight the structure will hold.

In this STEM lesson, student pairs design, build and test model vehicles out of different kinds of pasta capable of rolling down a ramp and then coasting as freely as far as possible. Students become familiar with the concepts of gravitational potential energy, kinetic energy, and rolling resistance. Teams follow the steps of the engineering design process as they design, test, and redesign their vehicles, working within the project's materials constraints.

STEM can be added to any lesson to expand knowledge. As a STEM teacher in a standards based lab it is important that I can incorporate and embed state standards into every lesson or project I do. in the session I will walk through designing a lesson across curriculums and grades using your standards and incorporating engineering and problem solving.

In this lesson students create large story maps to retell and familiar text. Students record themselves and place QR codes along the story map. Students then code Sphero Robots, dressed as main characters, to make their way through each part of the story.

In this STEM activity, students are challenged to solve a real-world problem that is part of the space program while learning about heat and heat transfer. Students will observe a design before and after testing, and pick out the-key features as they apply the design process to a problem. In the challenge, students will build a structure from aluminum foil and copper screening that will protect a model of the Ares launch vehicles from the heat of a propane torch for as long as possible. Students will document their designs with sketches and written descriptions. As a culmination students compile their results into a poster and present them to the class.

Your team at the (create a name for your ad agency) has been hired as a travel   consultant to design a luxury tour through one of the Human Body Systems. Before you can collect your fee from the Holistic Body Tour, you must produce a brochure. The owner of the travel bureau, Ms. Image, has informed you that in order to win the contract you must highlight the trendy spots, the exciting activities, and the imports and exports of the areas. For insurance considerations, you must also discreetly mention any possible dangers or special precautions that tourists might encounter in visiting this system. Your 

The presentation will have specific lesson examples with explanations of how each is evaluated by the Triple E Framework. There will also be lesson examples to give the attendees an opportunity to practice their own Triple E evaluation skills. Attendees will gain access to a plethora of resources.

Link to presentation slides:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19WIQh-HqnY-vEajbroInPmSz0Gh6T7IhwnRWG5X5TEA/edit#slide=id.p

The Uncommon Story: Notable North Carolinians is a local public television program presented by PBS NC. This series was produced with support from the NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. Charlie Duke Jr. from Charlotte was the youngest astronaut to ever walk on the moon. Date aired: 3/28/2023