Share the Great Things Happening

One thing that I've learned this year is that it is important to both keep a record of the good things that are happening in your media center and to share it.  If you follow my on Twitter (@misstizzy), you'll see pictures of the activities as they happened in the media center.

I also used Smore to create monthly newsletter beginning in February so share with staff.  I wanted them to see projects that had been done with other teachers and possibly give them ideas of things we could try together.

Here are the three that I shared.  Enjoy!

February

March

April

Let the Sparks Fly

After working through scheduling issues, the STEM teacher and I were finally able to set times we could introduce her students to the Thinkabit Lab(TM) program.  We would work with her two classes of 8th graders over a 3-day period.

To prepare for the lessons I added a few touches to the media center to make it more like the lab I visited.  First I added dry erase vinyl to some of the tables.  I already had two removable whiteboard table tops built by our fabulous maintenance department staff.  The table tops could be added or removed as needed.  The other was to find a way to put all of the creating resources we were sent in a mobile storage space that would allow students easy access.  The lab I visited had all of the items out in the open, but since my space is also the media center I opted for a pretty creative alternative.  I purchased 4 of the small rolling storage drawer sets from Walmart and zip-tied the together.  This gave me 12 drawers to hold the supplies plus a work area.  I'll add pictures of this later.  

Day 1:  Circuits and Schematics

Supplies - LED, 3V coin battery, Circuit Scribe Pens, paper, dry erase markers, Arduino, wire, breadboard, resistor, laptop, USB Cable

The activity started with explaining the parts of a circuit and drawing the schematic on the whiteboard tables as we went along.  Students learned the correct symbols for LEDs, power, positive and negative.  

From there, the students used the Circuit Scribe Pens to draw the positive and negative lines to connect the LED to the power source.  If done correctly, their LED lit up.  

They were then introduced to the Arduino and it's parts. Students connected the Arduino to a laptop for power.  We drew a new schematic that included a resistor.  Students then used the wires, resistor, and LED to connect the breadboard to the Arduino to light the LED.  

Day 2:  Schematics and Servos

Supplies - Servo Motors, wire, Arduino, laptop, USB cable

After a quick review of schematics from yesterday, students began learning to write code to program a servo motor to move.  They were taken line by line through code to name their servo, learn key commands, how to change direction and speed.  The last part of class was spent explaining their final project.  

Students were shown examples of final projects I saw during my visit to Falls Church.  Then they worked with their partner to come up with a plan for the project they would make the next day.  There were some pretty cool ideas in the works.

Day 3: Creation Day

Supplies: servos, wire, Arduino, laptop, USB cable, and everything but the kitchen sink!

Today was D-Day.  Students had 40 minutes to create and program their project.  They did an amazing job.  Students hot-glued, taped, and tied their pieces together to create some pretty inventive projects. We had tail-wiggling skunks, jumping fish, catapults, windmills, a feeding giraffe and a football going to the goal.  

I was really proud of them and I think they were a little proud of themselves, too.  Best of all, they wanted to know when they could do it again!

You can find the fully scripted lesson here.