What did they do?

Your student worked in a group to build a paper skyscraper. 

Goal: 

Build the tallest skyscraper

Requirements:

• Only 10 sheets of paper

• no glue, tape, or any other item but the 10 sheets of paper

• The tower must be free-standing

• Mr. Linn will take the measurement

Family discussion questions:

Tell me about your STEM project?

Can you describe to me what your tower looked like? How tall was it? How did you build it?

How did you come up with your idea?

Do you feel like you were successful?

If you were asked to do it again, what would you do differently?

What did they do?

Your student will learn about how municipal water service works as a subject for their next engineering challenge. They will work in a group to build a water tower concept. 

Goal: 

Build the most efficient water tower. Efficiency is calculated by dividing the height of the tower by the number of pieces of paper used

Requirements:

• 10-30 sheets of paper

• Tape may be used

• The tower must be free-standing

• The tower must hold the can for at least 60 seconds to be valid

• Mr. Linn will take the measurement

Family discussion questions:

Can you tell me about what you did in STEM today?

I thought you built a tower yesterday, why is this different?

What ideas from the last project will apply to this one?

What new ideas can you add to this one?

Why do you think your design is going to work?

Where do you think the weak point in your design is?

What did they do?

Your student continued developing and building their water tower project with their group. They may test their towers at certain points to see if it holds the can before our final testing tomorrow

Goal: 

Build the most efficient water tower. Efficiency is calculated by dividing the height of the tower by the number of pieces of paper used

Requirements:

• 10-30 sheets of paper

• Tape may be used

• The tower must be free-standing

• The tower must hold the can for at least 60 seconds to be valid

• Mr. Linn will take the measurement

Family discussion questions:

Can you tell me about what you did in STEM today?

How did you build your tower?

Did you have to remake any part of it?

What was the hardest part of building it?

How tall was your tower and was it able to hold the can?

What is part of your design or building that didn't work well? What is the weak point that you could improve next time?

What did they do?

Your student finished building their water tower and tested it.

Goal: 

Build the most efficient water tower. Efficiency is calculated by dividing the height of the tower by the number of pieces of paper used

Requirements:

• 10-30 sheets of paper

• Tape may be used

• The tower must be free-standing

• The tower must hold the can for at least 60 seconds to be valid

• Mr. Linn will take the measurement

Family discussion questions:

How did your tower go? Was it able to hold the can?

How did you figure out the most efficient tower?

Why would you not want to just use like 100 sheets of paper?

What did the most efficient tower look like?

What improvement would you make to yours next time?

What did they do?

Your student completed their tower reflection worksheets and we introduced  our STEAM notebooks

Family discussion questions:

Why did Mr. Linn want you to have a composition book?

What did you put in your book so far?

What did they do?

Your student learned the steps of the engineering process and reflected on how they naturally went through those steps without even thinking about it on their first 2 projects. 

Family discussion questions:

I heard you learned about the engineering process today, what can you tell me about it?

Now that you know the process, would you have done anything differently when you built your towers?

What step do you think is probably the hardest?

Why would you have to go back and do part of it again?

Why you would want to communicate results even if you didn't meet all the requirements?

What do you think is good about this process?

Do you want to be an engineer? 

(if no) Why do you think he's making you learn this if you don't want to be an engineer? 

(if yes) If you're not engineering stuff yet, why do you think he's asking you to follow this process?

What did they do?

Your student watched a person go through the engineering process and identified the steps to see how it was applied.

Family discussion questions:

What happened in the video you watched?

What was one of the revisions that he needed to make?

Do you think he would have achieved success if he didn't follow the engineering process?