Joondalup Education Support Centre eNewsletter

STEM

We have been hard at work completing a range of activites in the STEM room over the last few weeks.

In Junior Primary, we have continued to investigate different types of weather. We used different straws to recreate the effects of wind and blow different items across a body of water. We then completed some races against our friends.

We have also been looking at how rain is formed. We used water, food colouring and shaving foam to recreate rain inside a glass jar.

In Years 4 and 5, students have continued to investigate water. We designed and tested different materials to create a plastic bottle water filter, with varying success. We will be repeating this activity again later in the term and trying to improve on our initial design.

We have recently begun using virtual reality as a means of providing students enhanced exposure to scientific concepts. The Year 6 students have visited the moon and held virtual models of planets in their hands. In other parts of the school, we have visited places with different weather conditions to here in Perth, such as snow-covered mountain ranges and tropical storms.

During Week 5, students engaged in a range of maths-focused activities using technology we have previously used for Science and Technologies. We used our STEM mouse to create a number line and program the robot to move along it. We used items such as Osmo and Touchtronics tiles to complete counting and addition activities. We also used the Choose-It-Maker app to practice concepts such as counting on and skip counting. We will continue to touch on aspects of maths while in the STEM hub, to compliment mathematical learning that is happening back in classrooms.

Rory Critchley

Stem & SCience Teacher