STEM Measurement Challenge
This semester, our focus has been taking something from your current curricula and changing, or making it more STEM oriented, or creating another STEM based 7-E lesson plan. I decided that I wanted to take out unit on measurement and conversion of measurement and ramp it up. It had no STEM opportunities for students, which was why it was my choice to take that unit and incorperate a STEM measurement challenge for students. Below is an outline of my project and some examples of what I would use in my class to lead up to, and incorperate in the STEM challenge.
My
project is all about taking a unit that didn’t quite measure up to my standards
(see what I did there?) and ramping it up to include a STEM measurement
challenge where students are creating an amusement park layout, and will create
different aspects of an actual amusement park. They will use different units of
measure incorporated within the unit. WIthin the challenge students will not
only be expected to use different unit of measure but will also need to be able
to successfully convert those units used. Because this unit was one that was
very dry and frankly, boring, I wanted to create a more meaningful learning
opportunity for students to get hands on and creative with measurement and
conversion. If time allows, students will also pick one item (preferably a
roller coaster or ride from their amusement park layout), and will build that
to scale. This will also incorporate prior knowledge of rations learned earlier
in the school year.
