Full STEAM ahead!

     Awesome news! My school will be offering a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) class next year and I get to teach it! It will be called Full STEAM Ahead! The Science department brought up the idea at the beginning of this school year to the administration and they thought about it for a while until it was finally approved.

     Within the past few school years, I have been in charge or sponsored various science competitions for my students to be a part of. It was always done after school or before school, weekends, personal time, etc. It has become a bit overwhelming so having this class will really help with all those competitions. Of course this means I have to come up with a curriculum plan for the 2016-2017 school year for the course and I have no idea where to start! :( I have some ideas on what I want to incorporate in the class:

1. E-portfolios - have the students post their work on a blog, site, or some sort of online portfolio to document their engineering process. The best scenario would be to use Edmodo since I use it for everything.

2. Relate activities & competitions to STEAM careers - number 1 question I get in science class with some of the concepts we learn, "when am I ever going to use this in real life?" or "what type of job does this relate to?" this should have students research what STEAM careers relate to specific challenges or topics.

3. Monthly themes - I wanted to make each month a different theme with real world challenges that students need to come up with solutions for, like one month focused on water and all the issues we can think of with water and how to fix it! I need to the class to be structured enough where students don't find themselves bored or asking what they should be doing.

4. Think critically - seems cliche, but a lot of students can't solve an issue even if its a simple one like how to load staples into the stapler. I want them to be ready for the future and to become those members in society that will fix the world's problems.

5. Robots! - ok this is because I like robots among other nerdy science things and I ordered 3 SPHERO Bots that students can code to perform certain functions. Coding is not only fun but part of the future and they catch on pretty quickly. I've had the students code in class using code.org where they created their own games and posted it on Edmodo for other students to play. I had to test out the SPHERO so my husband bought me BB-8 from star wars and it's been all fun and games at home! check out the video of BB-8 at home:

Check back next year when the class is in full effect!