STEM News

Dear Families,

I am excited to return back to the STEM room, taking STEM classes on a Wednesday and Thursday. Please find below the overviews and driving questions for each year level.

This term quite a few year levels have 'Design' embedded in their units. As a result, we are asking for any clean cardboard, 1.25L plastic bottles and bottle caps to support students' creations. If you have any of these we would love these to be dropped off to the STEM room. 

Looking forward to a creative term!

Diandra Merola

dmerola@olgcdeepdene.catholic.edu.au

Term One: Overviews

Foundation:

This term, students will take on the role of scientists and engineers, and participate in simple experiments. They will explore how scientists use their 5 senses to notice, question, hypothesis and describe what happens during conducted experiments. Students will also be encouraged to compare how changing elements in an experiment affects their outcome. 

STEM Driving Question: How can we use our 5 senses to notice how things change? 

Year 1&2:

This term, students will revise their understanding of each STEM discipline and explore what effective group collaboration looks like in STEM. Students will experiment with magnets exploring ideas of magnetism and force, and work in collaborative groupings to generate solutions that meet posed problems. 

STEM Driving Question: How can we use magnetic force to move objects? 

Years 3&4:

To begin the Term, students will explore and reflect upon what effective collaboration looks like in STEM and learn about effective ways to work productively in team projects. Applying this understanding, students will work in small groups to explore the coding of microbits using their different features, applying this knowledge to building cardboard guitar. 

STEM Driving Question:  How can I use code to design and create a working instrument? 

Years 5&6:

To begin the Term, students will explore and reflect upon what effective collaboration looks like in STEM and learn about effective ways to work productively in team projects. With a focus on the Formula 1, students will learn about different types of energy and explore how different types of energy can make things move. Through the design process, students will  create a moving “car”. Students will work through the design process to modify and improve their designs, in particular the speed and distance their cars can move.  

STEM Driving Question: What is an effective way to make things move?