STEM or STEAM - the resources are all around us!

STEAM - Science - Technology - Engineering - Art - Math -  - 
Insights from our summertime 3 R's

In our last newsletter, School's Out for Summer, we introduced our new 3 R's for Summer - Relax, Refresh and Renew!  We even took our own advice on that when we conducted a professional development event, PBL21 - Designing the 21st Century Classroom, at a wonderful middle school in Arizona!  

We decided to relax, refresh and renew by enjoying the spectacular scenery on a road trip from central Texas to northern Arizona.  The weather was perfect, and the changing landscapes were breathtaking.  First the beauty of sprawling cattle ranches, then miles of lush fields of wheat and corn, through the rose-colored desert, past spectacular mesas, then suddenly entering dense pine forests as we climbed the snow-capped mountains, it was spectacular. It brought to mind the song, America, the Beautiful! 

(Which reminds me to remind you - Constitution Day in the United States is September 17.  Here are some excellent resources for you and your students!)  

Click "Read More" to read about all the amazing sights we saw and the curriculum connections we made, especially to STEAM!  And please add in the Comments some sights you've seen that could be the spark for a great PBL21 unit!

​The first fascinating experience was driving through many miles of wind farms near Sweetwater, Texas!   Research back at home tells us that these are the largest wind farms in the world!  

Each green dot indicates a separate wind farm.

 It's a vast forest, but instead of trees there are these strange looking, gigantic machines.  There were seemingly thousands of huge turbines with enormous blades (each blade is 131 feet in length!); this forest stretched from one horizon to the other as far as we could see. We stopped to get pictures and listened to the almost inaudible, yet eerie, sound as the giant blades swept through the air.

To get an idea of their size, see the car in this photo!  It is NOT a toy.   

​Serendipity in curriculum design - I came home and began researching wind farms; I have begun developing new pages on our curriculum resources web site.  I started with "wind farms", then backed up to "alternative energy" and from there I backed up to "sustainability".  Then I discovered the United Nations' current project - the selection of their new Sustainable Development Goals for 2015-2030.  The final vote on these goals will be in September.  They are requesting input from everyone, including students!

We took our own recommendation to "connect with nature" as part of the 3 R's by visiting the Grand Canyon, only 50 miles off our route.  

​We also visited Meteor Crater, with a diameter of 1 mile and a circumference of 2.4 miles, the result of a collision between an asteroid and Planet Earth 50,000 years ago.  This page has STEM curriculum for educators.  Hmm . . . . I'm thinking astronomy, space, space exploration, the solar system, Planet Earth, meteors . . . what else? 

And finally, we visited the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico.  Whether you believe in UFOs or not, it is a fascinating place; and the testimonials of many high ranking people, American presidents and astronauts, for example, do give one pause to think!  

It's also a place to enjoy some plain old, sci-fi fun with models of flying saucers and aliens!  We also saw Gort and Klaatu from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still.   Here is an excellent curriculum guide from The Film Foundation based upon this film.  (They also have curriculum guides for the films Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and To Kill a Mockingbird!)

The museum and its web site are great resources for a curriculum unit on Science Fiction and Science Fact!  Here are a few ideas and resources for a Sci-Fi unit; whether you teach first grade or 12th grade, you will find resources you can use.

(Another excellent resource is the Seattle Museum of Science Fiction!  Here are the winning submissions for their Write Out of This World Sci-Fi and Fantasy Short Story Contest for K-12.)

I guess you could say we had a STEAM trip - just consider for a moment all the science, technology, engineering, art and math connected to each of the few places we visited!  

As you may recall, I am big believer in Serendipity in Curriculum Design.  Each of these places inspired me with all kinds of ideas for curriculum connections, connections to multiple literacies and opportunities for students to practice and refine critical 21st century skills.  

Each of these locations - the cattle ranches, the wheat and corn crops, the wind farms, the desert and mesas, the pine-forested mountains, the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater and the UFO Museum - represent an abundance of resources for planning a PBL21 curriculum that is relevant, rigorous and real world.  Here are your Common Core State Standards, here are your literacies - not only reading, writing and math, but financial literacy, ecoliteracy, emotional literacy, visual literacy, media literacy . . . , and of course, 21st century skills . . . . . please see my three compass roses for: 

·         Critical attributes of 21st century education
·         Multiple literacies for the 21st century, and the 
·         7 Survival Skills for the 21st Century

It's all there!  You do not have to use canned curriculum, marching constantly through all the skills and sub-skills, boring students to death with worksheets.  You can create a curriculum that will make students beg to come to school!

My next post hones in on possibilities for a PBL21 curriculum based upon Science Fiction.  You can have a Sci Fi unit ready to go shortly after school starts (or time it to end on Halloween) and watch your students dig in and learn!

Their web site offers many links to resources for both Teachers and Kids.  One of the "7 Natural Wonders of the World", a visit to this site (physically or virtually) presents opportunities for the integration of many disciplines; for example, Biology (plants and animals), Geology (rocks, minerals and fossils, landforms +++), Oceans, Human History, Archaeology, Environmental Studies . . . well, you get the idea!