SHTEAM Learning

We are diving in to math, science, and engineering this week. 

The 7th Grade Ancient Civilization teachers introduced me to coding with Sphero. They have successfully used the program with their students. this year After learning about chariots in class the students made chariots and raced them after coding little  spherical robots that are used as the horse. The kids had a lot of fun, and I tried it with my Language Support-Historians shortly after. I was more than a little nervous, but it really was a great experience. 

One of these 7th Grade teachers is also a US History teacher and discovered an activity that would bring coding into US History, too. After we studied the impact of the geography on the settlers, we decided to enhance this learning and try Sphero with our 8th Graders for the first time.



Student Historians are building a 4 wheel, 2 axle Conestoga wagon and coding the 8 parts of the Trail. Creating a project of this magnitude from 1 small class to 4 large classes is daunting, but it's going well. We are all learning from our mistakes and practicing the engineering design process together. We are combining science, history, engineering, art, and mathematics. I will now refer to this learning as SHTEAM learning.

Every time I am able to incorporate scientific disciplines into my curriculum I feel a sense of accomplishment. It's not an area of comfort for me, but it's critical to give my students these opportunities. 

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