Category Archives: Making

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”The product isn’t as important as the process.” (Or – “Getting to a final product is an important part of the process.”)

During my classroom experience with “hands-on” project/problem based learning I would often hear from colleagues, “The product is not as important as the process.” I think there is truth to that, but during my years of observing / facilitating numerous projects I found it somewhat shortsighted. I’m not saying that the product always has to be polished, however I found that getting the project to be beautiful or stable is where much of the problem solving, art/design and creativity happen. Example: The gizmo you’ve built requires 2-3 people to hold it together while another pushes the button or it doesn’t work or falls apart, versus we got it to work now we have to find a way to house it, have it work consistently and maybe even make it aesthetically pleasing.

Yes, getting the gizmo to work at all or even close to working still involves lots of problem solving, collaboration and all the other goodness that comes from a project. Pushing through to get the gizmo to work and then making it more stable so it is held together with no help and maybe even designing a container that it fits in nicely, get into design and esthetics and an understanding of what goes into making a final product. Throw in making it beautiful by redesigning the container and deciding on color and shape and form adds even more creative exposure. This is some of the hardest work, thinking and problem solving that can happen. How often do students experience that part? I found it can take as long as the initial design.

Again, I’m not saying to go there every time. It’s not feasible because of time and other constraints, but consider it as a powerful piece of learning …  even once or twice a school year. The polish piece is an important learning piece that is way too often skipped or not appreciated as valuable. Yes, the process is very important, but don’t forget that getting to a stable, polished design is also very important. Messy, but very important.

Learning is messy!

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Africa’s plastic bag ban seems to be working, and a STEM challenge idea

My wife and I were fortunate to travel to Africa this past summer. Our itinerary included Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We were notified by most of the listed countries when we applied for tourist visas that we were not to bring plastic bags into the country under penalty of heavy fines. This sparked my interest since during the past year I had helped develop a 5th grade STEM engineering lesson on reducing plastic pollution in the ocean.

I photographed this leopard with a Canon pocket camera with a 40x zoom lens in Serengeti National Park, Tanzania in July 2019.

We spent most of our time on safari in Tanzania, and I asked our guide about the reason for the new law. He explained that the small towns (and other areas) we would occasionally pass through had become heavily polluted with plastic trash. Towns were severely blighted with bags and other plastics stuck in trees, bushes, power lines and blowing drifts of trash on the ground. As we were passing through I was impressed by the cleanliness of these towns now. There was an initial national program that collected the plastic and now the goal is to keep them clean by banning plastic bags and other types of plastic trash.

You can imagine this scene with plastic bags stuck in the trees and grasses and how that would effect the wildlife and beauty in so many ways.

Other issues with plastic pollution is that bags collect water when it rains and then become perfect breeding ponds for malaria carrying mosquitoes. Plastics wash into the drainage and sewer systems where they clog and back-up the sewers and eventually dump their load into other waterways and the ocean.

Of course one of the driving forces behind the ban was to keep plastics out of their beloved national parks. Parks that are vital to their economy. Our experience bore this out. The scenery was beyond spectacular. In the parks you are immersed in animals – they are everywhere. And in nine days in the Serengeti I saw no plastic trash, except where it was supposed to be … in the trash.

Plastic pollution is a great STEM challenge for our students of all ages. It is a difficult problem to address, but it effects all of us. It involves not just removing the plastic and micro-plastics from our water and land, but also cutting off the flow of plastics that enter the environment every day. You’ve seen the photos of animals with plastics wrapped around and stuck in their bodies. Those photos of animals and plastic infested waters are also great motivators to our students to get involved with and persevere in finding solutions.

Baby Giraffe. Still had some of its umbilical cord attached.

Students can design machines and other methods to remove plastics that can involve computer programming to operate and stress re-design, and collaboration. Students can also mount marketing and public awareness campaigns using social media in powerful, “real life” contexts where they really make a difference. Think social media and photos, videos and other sharing media used in ethical, meaningful ways to promote keeping plastics out of the environment.

Sunrise over the Serengeti. Wildebeests.

This is “messy” learning for sure. It takes time to do well and so it mostly doesn’t happen in our schools even though we know it is the very kind of learning experience we should be providing. It is the work and powerful learning that is so lacking today. It promotes awareness of the world around us, the wonder and issues the world provides AND the motivation to do real work. Work that cries out for collaboration, problem solving, creativity and perseverance.

STEM and inquiry learning should not only be jumping from one cool project or experiment to the next. We leave too much of the potential learning behind when that happens. At least a few times each year the take a project to a refined ending, including integrating (writing, speaking, social studies, math, PE … really anything) analyzing the data, collaborating (globally if possible), continuing the engineering design cycle through multiple iterations and even taking the time to “polish” the end product. That polishing is where the connection to art often flourishes. Shape, color, textures and more of the finished product are difficult and provide new challenge and problem solving that connects to more students.

Consider the learning projects solving issues like plastic pollution provide for students and jump in!

Learning is messy!

(More photos can be found here and here)

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Helping Nevada’s Homeless – A 4th grade NGSS STEM Engineering Lesson – an introduction

Last year I was part of a team funded by the Nevada Governor’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology to provide the first Engineering Fellows Program for 5th grade teachers. The model learning sequence we started the program with was about the issue of plastic pollution, specifically how it effects the ocean. 5th grade students were challenged to design and engineer a way to remove plastic from the ocean.

This year the program is focused on 4th grade teachers and their students. The model NGSS aligned engineering lesson we’ll start them with is about helping the homeless by engineering a way for them to charge devices when they have little to no access to electricity. The teachers (and their students) will learn how homeless people face the issue of being contacted after they’ve interviewed for a job (or a doctor’s appointment and other issues). So being able to recharge a phone or other devices could aid them in solving their homeless situation.

I plan to post the whole lesson sequence later, but wanted to share the basic concept since I was working on it a bit today assembling this simple alternator.

Students, in small groups, will assemble the alternator, including wrapping the wire, which is no easy feat. Next, after researching the issues that the homeless deal with, students will design a way to spin their alternator to generate electricity. We will NOT share any ideas for this with students, but I would assume some might design a handle or perhaps some kind of wind turbine or who knows? That’s the messy learning part I love. I put one together today and had some issues getting the wire to wind without kinking. Teachers will do this themselves during our first meeting so that they gain worthwhile experience that helps facilitate their students later in class.

My alternator worked fine lighting the LED. You spin the green axle to generate electricity.

The grant pays for materials for the teacher sessions and the materials they’ll need for their students. In addition at the end of the program teachers will get a grant for $1,000 to purchase the materials required to teach lessons they and their colleagues develop during the program. I’ll share our progress along the way.

Learning is messy!

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Cardboard Automata Resource

My friend Kevin Jarrett shared this easy to follow guide to Cardboard Automata from the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It’s a great FREE resource for getting started with making in a fun, creative way. You can easily get started with stuff you probably already have around the house or classroom. Kevin suggests:

“Pro tip: print the instruction pages in color and have them laminated. Then place several at tables where people are working so they can refer to them. Works great!“

The guide includes links to video clips, materials lists, examples of projects, and suggestions, besides the colorfully illustrated step by step instructions. A great way to get started at home or in the classroom. The obvious next step would be taking the skills learned here and integrating them with motors, gears and such, whether you have them or get them in a kit such as what is offered in a Hummingbird Bit kit. Then besides hand cranking the movements, you have motorized them and added computer programming to the mix. Check it out!

Learning is messy!

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High Hopes Project HAB Launch 6/1/18

Group photo just before launch

I’m going to try and catch up on some long past due posts about the High Hopes Project. Last June we launched from Virginia City High School in Nevada. I posted about the preparation for the launch which will give you good background on the payloads students designed. The launch went flawlessly – perfect weather, not a puff of wind.

 

 

 

Besides the student payloads and GoPro cameras, we launched our Flir infrared camera as well which gave us some interesting perspectives. Note the shadows in this shot:

Note the long shadows from the early morning sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then note what appear to be shadows in this screenshot taken from the video shot by our infrared camera soon after launch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What appear to be shadows are not. They are cooler areas on the ground caused by the shadows of the balloon and students. Note the balloon has already been launched and is 200 feet in the air (or more), how could its shadow be where it was before it launched?

Here is video of the launch in infrared:

And here is the launch taken from the ground:

One of the student payloads was an interesting sound experiment. The question they were trying to answer was: “At high altitude above 98% of the Earth’s atmosphere, would the air be so thin that sound would not travel through the thin air to be picked up by a microphone?” The students designed a Tie-Fighter from Star Wars (just for fun) and had the Star Wars theme playing on a loop. You can see the ball shaped speaker in the center of the video. They insulated the base so sound would not travel through the payload and be picked up by the microphone. It started out great, but unfortunately at about 42,000 feet it just got too cold (probably around -10F) and the batteries, which had lasted for 3 hours when they did a test in a school freezer at 15F, just quit. We edited together video from launch and then spliced in at about 8,000 feet and then just before the batteries died:

Another student payload took on the engineering task of releasing the “High Hopes” of the world. Students and others from around the world had submitted their high hopes for their school, community and the world through a Google Form or Twitter (about 1100 were submitted). The “Hopes” were printed out and cut out individually and placed in a payload students had designed to open about an hour into the mission. Again the batteries they had tested, and lasted for 5 hours at 15F, that ran the motor that would open up the payload to release the high hopes failed. Fortunately they had designed in a back-up system. When the balloon burst and the payloads fell to Earth at over 200 miles per hour (until the parachute slowed them down at lower altitude) a fin on the side of their payload caught the wind and pulled open a side of the payload and released the high hopes.

High Hopes release at about 95,000 feet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is video of the burst and high hopes release in slow motion:

After a flight we like to note what happens to the balloon on the way up. Note in the photo at the top of this post the 2000 gram balloon is probably about 6 – 8 feet across (we over-filled it a bit so it would go up fast and come down before it got too far up in the mountains and private property). When it burst it was just a bit bigger:

At launch the payloads almost cover up the balloon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But just before burst at 95,000 feet … note any difference in balloon size? If so, why?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some more photos taken up high:

Burst

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Tahoe on the left, Pyramid Lake on the right at 92,000 feet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yerington, Nevada, from 90,000 feet. A wide angle setting on this camera and the movement from falling exaggerates the Earth’s curve in the photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many more photos on this Flickr album.

We came very close to “catching” this one on the way down, but were thwarted when we lost cell service (so GPS as well) at a key point in the descent and missed it by about 2 minutes.

Learning is messy!!

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – A 5th Grade Learning Sequence

Plastic pollution in an ocean gyre. Some floats on the surface, but more floats beneath the surface.

I am part of a team that is facilitating the “Nevada Engineering Fellows Program” for 5th grade teachers in Nevada. The funding for the program came from the Nevada Governor’s Office of Science Innovation & Technology. A major goal of the program is for teachers to learn how to design and build NGSS aligned STEM units with an emphasis on engineering, and to be able to evaluate the quality of units they find elsewhere.

The plastic pollution problem in our oceans has become catastrophic. Plastic never goes away it, just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces (micro plastics) that are ingested by sea life (and then us).

Chris Jordan http://www.parley.tv/updates/2016/3/17/chris-jordan-midway-message-from-gyre

We started by having the participating teachers experience a model unit we designed on removing plastic from the ocean. They spent all day on a Saturday in October learning the unit. Then we provided all the materials required for the teachers to take the unit back to their classrooms to do with their students. We visited every classroom to observe how things were going and to consult. The phenomena that kicked off the unit is the video below (there are many others to choose from BTW if you search the web). Teachers and students reported to us during our classroom visits how compelling watching and re-watching the video and making/sharing observations of what they saw and heard … really motivated them to want to take on this engineering challenge.

Here is a link to the unit plan.  Kris Carroll did most of the heavy lifting on the unit design with plenty of  help from Stacy Cohen, Tracey Gaffney and myself.

The graphic organizers referenced in the unit plan and some support materials:

Engineering INB Phase A_3_5_ElementarySchool 

Engineering INB Phase B_3_5_ElementarySchool

Engineering INB Phase C_3_5_ElementarySchool

Engineering In NGSS Handout

Engineering Design_Grades_3_5

Here is the materials list for making a plastic gyre for each group (although we substituted somewhat and some teachers added to it): Materials for gyre

Here is a link to a Flickr set from teacher trainings in- Southern Nevada, Northern Nevada

Here are photos from 10 classrooms in Northern Nevada.

BELOW: These are the plastic plant trays we provided:
IMG_4705

But some teachers substituted with larger containers: IMG_4718

The trays of water were somewhat problematic in that they were small (so they could be utilized more easily in moving to and from student tables) and students struggled with scale. One big suggestion based on our experience, after the initial trial of their design, have a complete debrief that includes a discussion of size of both the plastic debris (which should be cut much smaller than you see here) but also that the devices students build need to be smaller than you see here as well. In addition discuss how the trays represent a tiny, tiny part of the ocean (students really struggled with understanding the size of oceans). Also we suggest after the initial experience have students brainstorm materials that they believe should be included in the materials they have available to build their plastic removal/gathering device – then gather them from the school and have students find things at home to bring in to provide themselves more options.

We had an all day class for the teachers after most of them had completed most of the unit. They all reported that they and their students were highly motivated by the experience (and we noted the same during our classroom visits). Next teachers are designing their own units to match up with their curriculum using this experience as a model. I really feel I’m sharing only a sliver of the potential for this lesson and how it went here, so feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Learning is messy!

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NSTA Position Paper on Elementary School Science

The National Science Teachers Association makes the case for more science learning

From the NSTA Position Paper on Elementary Science:

“High-quality elementary science education is essential for establishing a sound foundation of learning in later grades, instilling a wonder of and enthusiasm for science that lasts a lifetime, and in addressing the critical need for a well-informed citizenry and society.”

No Child Left Behind and other well meaning, but very misguided (at best) education reform legislation narrowed out science (as well as a long list of other invaluable subjects) from the curriculum, especially from “at risk” schools. The thinking (wishing? assumption?) was that students that were behind in language and math would “catch-up” more quickly if schools and teachers just focused on those subjects. In addition the “research-based” programs that were promoted and funded tended to rely heavily on direct instruction and very little on making sense by doing. The assumption was made, promoted and implemented (with rigor and fidelity) that students would catch-up on the science, social studies, art, PE and more once they got to 7th grade. (Mostly … they aren’t catching-up)

In my own 30+ year experience teaching elementary students, mostly “at risk” students, I found over and over that science and making experiences motivated students to read and write and use oral language skills to explain their thinking. I shared some of those experiences during a TEDx talk I gave in Denver years ago. I’ve also shared numerous blog posts here about the learning my students have done because we did hands-on “doing” pieces that lead to lots of language arts and math … in fact I believe more powerful language arts and math than just following a program.

I’m not saying there isn’t a place for direct instruction, just that direct instruction and practice is way too sterile and uninspiring to slog through day after day. It tends to be a desirable approach for “other peoples” kids to be subjected to.

The curiosity and wonder that evolve from science and STEM inquiry (as well as art, social studies, and more) should be consistently promoted by daily science instruction and experiences. AND language arts and math time should be devoted when applicable to science. I note that the NSTA Position Paper on Elementary Science espouses:

  • There must be adequate time in every school day to engage elementary students in high-quality science instruction that actively involves them in the processes of science.

and that:

  • NSTA recommends that science be given equal priority as other core subjects, so schools should strive for at least 60 minutes of science instruction a day, including significant science investigations.

How many students have become disengaged and bored by a curriculum that focuses on skills and has narrowed out the subjects and activities that many students connect with? A focus on language arts and math are interesting to students that connect well, are successful with and motivated by those subjects, but too many struggle and are frustrated by that focus. Use the subjects and activity that they connect with to give them reason and curiosity to engage more with learning. Understanding how things work and feel and smell and sound brings meaning to reading that another worksheet or skill lecture can’t develop.

The NSTA Position Paper on Elementary Science goes much deeper into the many reasons science  learning time and quality experiences should be expanded and nurtured in our schools. It is well worth reading.

Learning is messy!

 

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Nevada – 5th Annual Statewide Recycled Art Contest

Make a Difference. Make a Masterpiece

Chris Jordan http://www.parley.tv/updates/2016/3/17/chris-jordan-midway-message-from-gyre

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about a 5th Grade Engineering Fellows Program I am co-facilitating here in Nevada. We are kicking off the program soon with a lesson on plastic waste in the ocean (follow the link above to see a video and more that explains the issue). We’ll share some video and other background, and then to make a long story short, we’ll challenge the teachers (and then they’ll go back to their classrooms and challenge their students) to engineer solutions to gathering the waste (although some experts contend that instead of focusing on collection, the main effort should be on not adding additional plastics to the oceans). I’m hoping to add the entire plastics lesson we are building in a future post.

Then in a very timely fashion I was made aware of the contest I pasted the press release about below. More info about the contest can be found here NevadaRecycles.nv.gov. We will share this with our “fellows” as a way to add an art connection to their engineering piece. For those Nevada teachers / residents that are interested here is the press release:

From: Recycling and Water [mailto:ENVIRONEWS@LISTSERV.STATE.NV.US] On Behalf Of Patricia Moen
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2018 9:02 AM
To: ENVIRONEWS@LISTSERV.STATE.NV.US
Subject: 2018 Recycled Art Contest

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:  Southern Nevada: Rachel Lewison, rlewison@ndep.nv.gov, 702-486-2850, ext. 268

                 Northern Nevada: Patty Moen, pmoen@ndep.nv.gov, 775-687-9466

5th Annual Statewide Recycled Art Contest
Make a Difference. Make a Masterpiece

CARSON CITY, NV – The Nevada Recycles program has partnered with The Venetian Resort Las Vegas to support a statewide recycled art contest to increase Nevadans’ awareness and interest in recycling. In support of Earth Day’s 2018 campaign to End Plastic Pollution, this year’s projects must be made with used or found plastic materials. Fastening materials may include tape, glue and/or string, and other materials as needed for structure or support. Submission of an entry form and photos of artwork are due by October 24, 2018.

In addition to a $250 prize to the first place class project, The Venetian will provide first, second and third prizes ($200, $100 and $50 respectively) in five categories: Kindergarten-Grade 5, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult, and Professional Artist.

In 2017, Nevada’s recycling rate was 21%.  Based on residential and commercial sector data, Nevadans (including the influence of the tourist population) throw away about 5.8 pounds of trash, per person, per day.  That is approximately four million tons of trash that enters a landfill each year.

“Recycling is the easiest thing we can do to save energy, conserve natural resources and create green jobs,” said Pranav Jampani, Director of Sustainability for The Venetian, The Palazzo and Sands Expo.

Winners will be announced on America Recycles Day, which is Thursday, November 15.  More information about the contest, along with submission guidelines, is available at NevadaRecycles.nv.gov.

Patty Moen

Northern Nevada Recycling Coordinator
Solid Waste & Recycling Branch
Bureau of Sustainable Materials Management

901 S. Stewart Street

Carson City, NV 89701
pmoen@ndep.nv.gov

Learning is messy!!

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Never assume your students know how to work together on a project

Early in the year do some mini projects to scaffold them

I remember back in the day (or do people still do these?) when teachers in 4th or 5th grade tended to assign “the state” or “the country” report. Way too often the assumption was made that the students pretty much knew how to do these. The teacher would pass out the “packet” that explained the project, showed an example of a bibliography and often included templates for specific information that was to be included (state name, population, area in square miles, draw a map labeled with specific information and so on). Photos, usually from cut up National Geographic Magazines or brochures from travel agents were required. Typically the report was due in a month or six weeks. Each week they would have students check in with their progress and to allow students to ask questions about anything they didn’t understand about the report.

Like science fair projects it often appeared like someone a bit older (and maybe with a college degree?) might have “helped” somewhat …  or they were incomplete or were of poor quality. Some did well, but how much learning actually occurred was questionable. This was the way this had always been done, it was “challenging” and, like the infamous science fair project, expected.

One of my main concerns about these projects was the assumption that students knew how to do all the work that went into the report and this was just a chance for them to put together a big project integrating all those skills. AND, after all, they were allowed to ask questions about what they didn’t understand (like they would even know exactly what they didn’t understand or know how to do). Since these were really long term homework projects the teacher didn’t see the work being done which made facilitating difficult.

Early in my career I had the same experience when facilitating projects in my classroom. I knew doing projects was supposed to be “good stuff,” so it was important to do them.  Things would often hum right along as students worked on a project and I would allow myself to get sucked into observing from across the room, just to keep an eye on things, and would even do a quick task like lunch count or attendance or a quick email. Questions would pop up or a student or 2 would need some redirection, but often it was great to just let students work – or so I told myself.

Too often though after a “way too short” a period of time, some students would start claiming they were “done” or “done with that part”. Their work was almost always poor or incomplete or was off subject or all the above. This led to frustration on my part and a decreasing interest in the project by students (which was more frustrating since this is an awesome project dammit!!!).

Another observation I noted was that students were often very poor at working in a group. Even though I’d make groups have a meeting before they could get to work to go over what needed to be done that day and split up the work … which everyone in the group had to agree on so the group couldn’t just dump certain tasks on certain individuals. There would still be individual students off task, wandering around and too often causing issues. When the group would complain the student would often claim the work was dumb or boring … the group would respond that they agreed to do that part and weren’t getting anything done.

It took me awhile to understand that what was really going on (at least most of the time) was that this off track student didn’t really understand what to do, or how to do it, or even what the reason for it was. Anger, name calling and frustration was often the result (and more frustration for me … “the students were so excited about this project!!!”)

What I learned from these experiences and various classes, PD sessions and conversations with peers was that I was assuming students knew how to do these things … and mostly even the “on-task” students didn’t have a good grasp of them.

 I learned to do some relatively simple individual and group projects, early in the year especially. I’d do some without much work on group dynamics and let problems arise so we could talk about the real feelings they were having and then give them some skills to constructively deal with them.

One they loved was role playing the very issues they had just experienced. I would usually take a seat in a group and demonstrate how calling each other names was probably NOT going to lead to cooperation. Instead I would teach them to ask questions like, “Toni do you understand how to do that?” – Often that was the crux of the problem … the group mate just didn’t know exactly what to do but didn’t want to admit that and look dumb. Another important skill was just noting that maybe 2 students in the group should work on that part together … which led to students experiencing really being included.

We would brainstorm how to talk to each other respectfully. Next we would role play different “off task” situations and have every group talk through the issue to a positive conclusion (how to deal with a student in their group wandering around or throwing things or just sitting there). These were a hoot, lots of laughter, especially when a student that had a reputation of being a “model student” took on the “off task” student role. It was so obvious the more we did these lessons that one of the issues was that students just didn’t have the words or skills to deal with conflicts that arise.

I also had a rule that I would not come to answer a question unless everyone in the group had the same question and had their hands up. This promoted using your group members as resources and saved lots of time. You don’t end up or bouncing around the room or with the line of students waiting  to ask you a question they could have had answered quickly by the group. It also fostered a “working together” culture.

We’d talk about how fast the time goes by when you are truly cooperating and looking out for each other. And they saw this play out.

In addition I started walking around the room and sticking my head into each group to listen and watch –  all the time … I’d take notes about lessons or “mini-lessons” I should consider when I’d note anything from paragraphing, a science concept, how to use a technology piece or tool, how to add white glue to paint so it doesn’t crack when you paint landscapes and other cooperative group dynamics issues and more.

I stopped making these projects homework, unless a student or students asked if they could work on it after school or at home. It was way too valuable to do assessment through their doing. Observing and facilitating student work gets to individual and class strengths and weaknesses and students see that this is something they didn’t know how to do, but has value in their learning and doing.  What I made homework was resource gathering – materials, but also experts in their lives – someone’s family member that had a certain skill or knowledge to share. Some even found experts online and we had numerous video-conferences with experts contacted by students. 

When I work with teachers in my current job and bring up these ideas the number one obstacle for them is not believing they have the time or “permission” to spend on building a culture of learning.

This blog is entitled, “Learning Is Messy,” and building a supportive classroom culture is as messy as it gets. But in my experience it is what this testing, accountability and assessment culture has gotten us away from.

So as you start this year off, think of doing some simple projects to build a learning culture on.

Learning is messy!

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Ocean Gyres and Plastic Pollution Solutions

Designing an NGSS aligned STEM inquiry for 5th grade

Plastic pollution in an ocean gyre. Some floats on the surface, but more floats beneath the surface.

I’m currently involved in designing a 5th grade inquiry experience aligned to NGSS – I’m actually part of a team of 3. I volunteered (or was volunteered, not sure) to design a Plastic Gyre that 5th grade students will then design a system to collect the plastic from. These gyres full of plastic debris actually exist in the ocean, and as I recently noted even in mountain lakes like Lake Tahoe.

 

NGSS Standards: 5-ESS3 Earth and Human Activity 5-ESS3-1. Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.

Supports: 3-5-ETS1-1. Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
3-5-ETS1-2. Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
3-5-ETS1-3. Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved.

Here’s a video that will explain why we decided this was a good problem to address:

I’ll share more about what we’re up to in future posts, but here is a photo of what I’m working on now:

 

 

It’s a 17 inch round tray you put under a flower pot so it doesn’t leak when you water your plant. It’s about the cheapest thing I could find since we have to have 6 of these set ups for each of about 20 classrooms. I’ve cut up plastic grocery bags (a common plastic found in the ocean), water bottles, rubber bands (which I found don’t float), nylon string, straws, shredded plastic file folder, glitter, and more looking for the right analog of trash.

Next I’m working on what materials to have available for students to use to design and build their collection systems (we’ll encourage them to bring in their own materials too). I plan to share more about this later when we have things planned out and firmed up more. Any ideas that might help us are always welcome!

Chris Jordan http://www.parley.tv/updates/2016/3/17/chris-jordan-midway-message-from-gyre

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Learning is messy!