On Monday morning, July 29, the DHS Cafeteria was abuzz with excited conversations as third and fifth-grade students were working together as teams with various materials on a collaborative activity. Using building supplies like blocks and K’Nex, these students were engaging in a civil engineering challenge to build a bridge, taking into consideration supports, inclines, and other safety measures as well as working within budgets.
Teachers Jacky Carey and Alex Lagay explained that students will be working towards more complex builds as the week progresses. They engage in the engineering design process, utilizing creative thinking, problem-solving, and teamwork. Carey noted it also has students further examine the concept of what constitutes “technology” and that the term extends beyond electronics and applies to anything that solves a problem.
Volunteer and senior STEMbassador Suhani P. was volunteering in the Cafeteria and was observed engaging in open-ended questions to encourage the campers. She discussed her interest in STEM as a former STEAM Up camp attendee to now a STEMbassador who is actively involved in community STEM programs as well, like the W.E.B. Du Bois Scholars Institute’s Accelerated Learning Academy in Biomedical Engineering. Patel noted that she enjoys seeing the campers learn; that you can tell they gain new skills and knowledge throughout the program and are excited to share what they have learned. She also noted she highly recommends volunteering in the program to help provide interest in STEM to the community.
Classrooms in the DHS Science Wing were abuzz with activities, too. In one classroom, teacher Erin Carson was instructing fourth-grade students about pollinators. Using the Engineering is Elementary curriculum from the Museum of Science in Boston, students read the story “Mariana Becomes a Butterfly: An Agricultural Engineering Story” and were tasked with a related agricultural engineering challenge about pollination. While visiting the classroom, students were actively engaged in a discussion about some of the materials they will be using for their design challenge. Two students were observed in the discussion about similarities and differences in their materials, noting that the smooth texture of the marble, which represents the hard, outer shell of an insect, would not work best to pick up the pollen while the fuzzy pom-pom, which represented their fuzzy bodies, had small hairs that would work much better at transporting the pollen particles.
In another classroom, second-grade students were learning about coding with teacher Lauren Mann. Students are also introduced to their weekly topic with a book and also worked in BrainPop Jr. They will be using an iPad app to code with Smart Buddies. Ultimately, they will code to move a doll riding a segway. As the youngest campers, Mann noted they are learning a growth mindset as well, such as that sometimes engineers fail and that’s okay; they change their plans to improve the process.
These students engaged in learning about a different type of engineer each week, with related discussions, exploration, and activities to learn more about engineering. Mary Jo Hutchinson, co-coordinator of STEM programming, further discussed the Engineering is Elementary curriculum and how it promotes real-world problem solving with globally diverse stories, introducing students to various regions around the world as well. She noted that students also utilize math in the challenges as they work with budgets to purchase their materials, thinking critically about how much of each supply they will need to efficiently solve the problem. She noted that with how many programs are offered in the curriculum, there is never a repeat of an activity, so campers will always have something new and exciting each year to look forward to.
Middle school students were working in the FabLab in a creative week, a culmination of the skills they learned in the previous three weeks to create their own projects using various machines and materials. Seventh grader Gloria H. was showcasing her learning with the vinyl cutting machines and Corel Draw. She noted she started with a different vinyl machine when she was only 5 or 6 because she enjoyed being creative making shirts. She was observed helping two other middle school students making stickers. She modeled how to prepare the images in Corel to be printed on the Camm-1 GS-24, showing how to optimize, mirror, and send the files. With the vinyl machine itself, she demonstrated how to load the vinyl, indicating alignment, measurement, and loading different color vinyl sheets she cut to print the stickers.
Additionally, eighth-grade student Lucas S. demonstrated the TinkerCAD and Ultimaker software, showing how he can take various shapes to alter and blend them into unique designs. He also explained how different filaments and printers impacted the reiterations of his 3D model. Demonstrating the various iterations of his design, he indicated how it has changed over time. An interesting component he noted about the design was showing that the supports within the model can be printed with a new dissolvable filament.
Teacher Shaun Deloche guided the middle school students through their personal STEM projects. He also demonstrated a recent Fab Lab Academy project where students created clocks on the Trotec machines using Corel Draw.
NJ STEM Pathways Network provided a grant for the camps, which funded bus transportation for all campers as well as provided scholarships for students to attend the camp. The grant provided more access to the summer STEAM camps for students throughout the community.
Interested in attending STEAM Camp or Fab Lab Academy? Early bird registration opens in early spring annually.
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