STEM

Welcome back for Term Four! The STEM room will be a busy one this term with lots of activities and learning.

Prep - This term, students will be focusing on Earth and space science; learning about the weather and how it affects our daily lives.  This week we spent some time outside discussing the day's weather. We talked about the different clues that could help us know what the weather was like (for example: tree branches swaying shows that it's windy; a wet ground shows that it has been raining). Students matched weather symbols to weather words.

Years 1/2 - This term, students will be focusing on design technologies and learning to follow the engineering design process. The focus will be on turning ideas into solutions. This week, we discussed the different steps in the engineering design process and students spent time using various materials to make a STEM sign. They experimented using different techniques to join materials together and investigated how some materials were easier to shape than others.

Years 3/4 - This term, students will be focusing on design technologies and following the engineering design process to create suitable solutions to problems. This week they completed a design and build challenge to make a tower using only matchsticks and a clump of blu tac. Students focused on creating a strong base for their tower and then building up as tall as they could. 

Years 5/6 - This term, students will be focusing on design technologies and following the engineering design process to evaluate, refine and improve their solutions. 

This week, the Year 5 students completed a design and build challenge to make the tallest tower using only 4 A4 sheets of paper. The tower needed to stand on its own without being held, attached or resting on anything. 

This week, the Year 6 students completed their Build a Robot portfolio activity from last term. Their work can be seen on Seesaw.

Sandy Brewerton

STEM Teacher