See Blue STEM Camp – Page 9 – Margaret Mohr-Schroeder

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015

Brains, 3d pens, and robots…oh my!

Day 3 was so intense and great I don’t even know where to start! One teacher leader from the Yellow/Green groups summed up our thoughts pretty well: From programming a robot to handling a human heart: that’s pretty good breadth of experience for a day.

Today the Yellow and Green Groups got to visit Dr. Robin Cooper’s biology laboratory where they were immersed into the world of stereology. They learned about tumor sizes, especially how they determine them from 2-dimensional slices such as from a MRI machine. They also got to practice 3d modeling using Sketchup today. Then they got to handle some human organs, including the brain, use an EMG to discover electricity in their muscles, and talk about the human body in general through the outreach center.

The red and blue groups got to experience the world of mathematical modeling with Dr. Jen Eli today. They heard the buzz about this session yesterday, so many were very excited about today. They first got to work on their mathematical vocabulary and communicating with a partner through a series of short challenges. Then they dove right in to 3 dimensional figures and used 3D pens to create models of figures such as pyramids, tetrahedron, and even some did the dodecahedron! They really enjoyed using the 3D pens and seeing how the world of modeling has opened up with recent technology devices such as the 3D pens coming down in price.

In robotics today, all four groups continued to work on their challenge mats. We had lots of successes today and the students are feeling confident going into their challenges tomorrow. The most favorite mat has definitely been the “K mat” where the students get the robot to spell out C-A-T-S (and when achieved there are lots of “CATS CATS CATS” shouts of joy 🙂 ). Tomorrow, the yellow and green groups will be doing the Space Challenge and the red and blue groups will be doing the Green City Challenge.

In their words…

Yellow/Green Groups

What did you learn about today that you did not know before?

The leg has the most pulses
I learned that they take a picture of different sections of the brain to comoe up with the size of a tumor. [sic]
I learned about different parts of the organ and different diseases.
How the brain works and about the different brain sections.
That there is air and water in ur head [sic]
I learned about the human body, lie detector tests, the brai, and what foods have in it.
Sick hearts actually get larger.
I didn’t know kidey made urine [sic]
I learn about the differences of a healthy heart and a heart that’s sick

What did you like about what you learned today?

I like that I can use this in real life
I liked learning about the human body, also I liked touching the preserved organs.
It is something I could use in my career
I got to play on sketchup and see lots of things
It was fun to hold the organs, and the people were very willing to answer questions. I was never bored.

Red/Blue Groups

What did you learn about today that you did not know before?

I learned about a hexagonal prism.
How to use a 3 dimensional pen and how to draw connected cubes
that you can melt plastic safly [sic]
I learned how to draw 3-D shapes with isonic paper.
That there was more 3d shapes than regular

What did you like about what you learned today?

It was really fun to draw cubes and 3 dimensional shapes on 2d objects
I liked using 3-D pens
how to use math for archutechual things [sic]
it was really hands on

Conversation Starters…

Yellow/Green Groups

How big do tumors actually get? How do they know how big they are?
What was your favorite organ to learn about and touch? Why?
What did you find out when you did the EMG?
What challenges did you work on today in robotics? How comfortable are you with the programming now? What did you get your robot to do today?

Red/Blue Groups

What polyhedra did you build today with your 3D pen?
How successful were you and your partner at communicating during the mathematical challenges today?
What challenges did you work on today in robotics? How comfortable are you with the programming now? What did you get your robot to do today?
What was your favorite part about using the 3D pen?

Photo of the Day… (Don’t forget to click here to see all the camp photos; and here to follow our twitter feed – no account required!)

June 9, 2015

From 2D to 3D…it’s a world of opportunity all around us!

Another fabulous day is in the books! Your students probably came home pretty tired today from all the intense, engaging, excitement they had today! The Yellow and Green groups had the pleasure of one of our alumni coming back all the way from Arizona to present today! She brought with her a slew of mathematical modeling activities, including using our 3D pens! Students had the opportunity to enhance their geometric and spatial reasoning skills in three-dimensions. They also got to work on their mathematical vocabulary and communication as they provided clues in the activities. Of course their favorite part was getting to use the 3D pens (if some are interested, this is the model we purchased and had the most success with – we tested 4 different ones!). They first used the pens to construct polyhedra and then they got to play around with the pen. We had some great and unique creations!

The blue and red groups had a fascinating day with the geocaching (don’t worry I’ll let you ask your student what that is 🙂 ). They got to draw some “old style” maps (aka 2D) and then look at the mapping capabilities of Google Earth and it’s 3D visualizations. They found their houses and then went on a geocaching scavenger hunt on campus.

For robotics today they really dug deep into their beginning programming and challenges. Our robotics instructors created some awesome new mats and challenges this year to help guide them more with the programming, so they had a lot of fun getting their robots to drive through the mazes, knock over (empty) water bottles, and even spell out C-A-T-S CATS CATS CATS! There were lots of successes and we caught many of them on video. We’ll try to get all of those uploaded tomorrow for your viewing fun.

Tomorrow brings more mathematical modeling excitement for the red and blue groups and lear IMG_5730 copy ning about stereology in the yellow and green groups in the biology laboratory.

Your child(ren) will be working in groups all week long. The robotics groups are teams of 2 and will stay the same all week long, while the other groups formed will vary throughout the week. As the “real world” continues to become more team-work oriented, we want to help our students grow in that direction as well. We hope your child gets to work with a variety of students this week and in turn meets some great new friends!

In their words…

Red and Blue Groups:

I learned what longitude and latitude means.
I liked using Google Earth to find places.
I think it was interesting because we got to use fun things with maps.
I would like to learn more about geocaching, because I like being outdoors.

Yellow and Green Groups:

(What I would like to learn more) What other kinds of designs I can do because I would like to do them as my house. [sic]
I learned that 3D pens are the best thing that’s ever happened.
We got to use a 3D pen! (And I got to keep what I made)
We learned how to make 3D figures and made shapes with the 3D pens.

Conversation Starters…

Yellow/Green Groups:

What polyhedra did you build today with your 3D pen?
How successful were you and your partner at communicating during the mathematical challenges today?
What challenges did you work on today in robotics? How comfortable are you with the programming now? What did you get your robot to do today?
What was your favorite part about using the 3D pen?

Red/Blue Groups:

What is geocaching? What makes it different than reading an “old, flat map”?
What did you find in your geocaching scavenger today?
What was your favorite part about working with Google Earth?

Photo(s) of the day… (excited and ready to move on the next part of the afternoon!) Click here to view the rest (our internet is being slow tonight so they are taking a while to load…sorry!)

June 8, 2015

A rainy start to a great week!

Despite the pending rain and storms, we had a great start to our 2015 See Blue STEM Camp! We are very excited to welcome 144 campers together again this year! Registration went very well this morning and we really appreciate everyone’s patience in getting all the forms UK requires turned in. You all are awesome!

Just a note about the consent and assent forms that we ask for every year. Our camp is subsidized by an NSF grant that requires research and reporting to the agency. The purpose of the research is to develop a camp model that promotes STEM careers to adolescents and can be replicated. We also look at students attitudes towards STEM and the impact of our activities. We do not collect test scores or anything similar for your students nor do they have to be a Fayette County student to participate. Without this grant and consent and assent to participate the camp simply would not exist. We never report any names or any individual data…it’s always aggregated together! If you want to read our latest published research on the camp, please feel free to download our article and add it to your nightly reading routine 🙂

We will post a blog post each night this week with some highlights from the day and some conversation starters. The conversation starters are meant to help you get over the “What did you learn today?” “Nothin'” or <shrugging the shoulders> we often see at the adolescent age. We’ll also post a link to the photos we are taking throughout the week. If at any time you want a photo removed that is of your child, please let us know and we’ll be happy to take it down.

Today the blue and red groups (rising 5-6th graders) headed to see Doug Klein, Director of UK’s Project Lead the Way, in the College of Engineering to get some civil engineering hands-on experience. They learned about the design engineering process and then applied it to some civil engineering activities by building dams and levees and testing them out.

The yellow and green groups (rising 7-8th graders) got to experience the wonderful world of engineering today with Dr. Bruce Walcott. They went on a tour of the engineering complex and got to visit several different laboratories and testing rooms. They got to experience the engineering design process by building aluminum foil boats and seeing how many pennies one can hold and they modeled some other engineering activities such as waves with slinkies and magnetic fields, etc.

In robotics, both groups started by reverse engineering their robots. They were given a fully assembled robot and they had to disassemble it and re-assemble. They always love this part, but we’re eager to continue moving them on to basic programming challenges. Many of the groups were able to get to these challenges and had a lot of fun learning and getting to know their robot. We create some new robotics mats this year to work on the basics and creating our own challenges; we hope this will keep the creative juices flowing this week!

In their words… Each day we’ll post some excerpts from the students’ reflections of what they learned each day at the STEM Content session.

Yellow and Green Groups What I learned today…

I learned that if you make 90 degree angles for the corners you should hold about 20-25 you pennies.
We got to contruct boats test them and record how sound waves travel
I did like the Water Resources Lab. I liked this lab because I find it interesting about how water flows and where it comes from
Canoes can be made of concreat
I learned how robotic sensors learn how far away they are from an object.
Dense things can become bouyant depending on their size and shape.
The Greek God’s Golden crown didn’t float in the water. (Archimedes Principle)

Red and Blue Groups What I learned today…

I learned what a levee is and how to make one that works.
How to build a strudy levee with bubble wrap & dirt.
I learned how to make a bridge out of 4 pieces of paper and 2 blocks.
What Hydrophilic means
That aluminum melts ice VERY fast and that it used to be considered very, very fancy.

Conversation Starters… We know that your child is getting to the age where it might be like pulling teeth to get them to talk about their day beyond “It was fine.” “It was fun.” Each day we’ll post some suggested conversation starters centered on camp activities or STEM-related themes.

Red/Blue Groups (rising 5-6th graders):

I didn’t realize there was a special process that engineers used…can you tell more about what they do in their process?
What kind of structure did you build today? Did you have restrictions on how to build it or what it could hold?
Tell me about how you assembled your robot. Did you follow instructions? Did you just try to figure out what parts went together?

Yellow/Green Groups (rising 7-8th graders):

What was your favorite part about the engineering tour today?
What is an anechoic chamber?
How many pennies did your boat hold? If you could build it again, what would you do differently?
Is there a particular field of engineering that you think might interest you?

Photo of the Day… Each day we’ll post a collage highlight. Clicking on the picture will also link to all of the pictures taken at camp. Please note that we try to capture pictures of all the campers, but we cannot guarantee that we will get every single one. We try our very best to though! Also we are STEM teachers and not full time photographers, so our pictures are not perfect and we leave them unedited, so if you love to edit photos…feel free! (We did not do too well at taking pictures today with the rain and such, but we promise to do better tomorrow!)

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to get live updates throughout the day! https://twitter.com/SeeBlueSTEMCamp

June 28, 2014June 28, 2014

Ending on a high note!

It’s hard to believe that we’re already at the end of the week! Today was an even busier day since it was the end of the week and the students were extra alive today from all the activity this week. The blue and red and groups got to experience Dr. Brett Criswell’s wonderful awe-inspiring world of nanotechnology. From experimenting with peach fuzz and different types of plants, to talking about polymer-chains found in over-the-counter indigestion medicines, the students were taken to the teeny tiny world of nano-land. They had a great time conducting different experiments and even remembered such things as Congo Red! In robotics, they wrapped up an awesome week with finishing many challenges in the green city challenges. There were lots of screams of excitement, joy, and high fives going around as the students became more communicative within their groups and more confident in their programming skills. We tried to capture some video of it today. Clicking on the video will take you to our YouTube Channel where you can view more videos from today.

The yellow and green groups got to experience the wonderful world of engineering with our resident engineering expert, Dr. Bruce Walcott. The students got to tour the engineering complex at UK and got to go into many of the different laboratories that UK College of Engineering has. There were faculty and graduate students onsite in the laboratories so they were able to show the students some of their latest research discoveries and experiments and let the students tinker with some of the lab materials as well. Seeing real research happening is always inspiring to the students and they really ask great questions that sometimes even stump the researchers! Of course the favorite again was the sound proof room. I’m not sure what it is about that room, but they always enjoy it! They also built mini motors and talked about simple machines with Dr. Walcott. They really enjoyed the various engineering design activities and applying their content skills. They ended their engineering time with some teamwork activities, including the favorite Hula Hoop Challenge. Students often forget that in the real world, most of our work is done in teams and communication is vitally important. So the students had a great time learning to communicate and talk to each other more.

Lego robotics for the yellow and green groups was much more successful today. We even had a couple of groups do all the challenges on the Space Challenge! The Space Challenge and EV3 programming is definitely a lot different from the NXT programming, so some were frustrated a couple of days ago, but were much more confident today. It was such a joy to watch them grow over the past week in this area. They really enjoyed the Space Challenge…it is definitely more complex than the Green City they were used to before!

We all had such a great and enjoyable week with the students. It would not at all have been possible without the tremendous staff that we had this year! I had a bit of a panic moment when (because of snow days) we decided to combine both camps into one week; but some quick creative thinking brought on an awesome opportunity for our preservice teachers in our middle and secondary programs and our doctoral students at UK. Some of the college students took a Robotics class with me prior to camp starting and assisted Mark Evans and Robbie Randall in the robotics rooms and some of the college students just wanted to help out with the camp. I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to and thank our staff this year.

We have a great group of graduate students in the STEM Education department at UK and these 5 are no exception!

IMG_4756 copy — L-R Back – Kayla Blyman, Floyd Broughton, Thomas Roberts; L-R Front – Maranda Miller, Marla Lemmon

Our inservice teachers are priceless! Robbie and Mark take the lead on the robotics, Brooke (Green Group), Tavin (Yellow Group), Megan (Blue Group), and Candice (Red Group) were our team leaders this year, of course Craig is the inventor, creator, and director of the See Blue STEM Camp. The camp is a way for our inservice teachers to stay connected to the university, provide high quality mentoring to the preservice teachers involved, and even have the opportunity to engage and learn new content and materials alongside the students.

IMG_4765 copy — L-R Back – Robbie Randall (Beaumont MS), Mark Evans (Jessie Clark MS), Candice Cprek (Henry Clay HS); L-R Front – Brooke Powers (Beaumont MS), Tavin Feheley (Jessie Clark MS), Craig Schroeder (Beaumont MS). Not pictured – Megan Vogel (Tates Creek MS)

Since we were going to 1 week with 144 students, we knew we had needed to have more help. It was an obvious choice to offer the opportunity to the preservice (future teachers) middle and secondary mathematics and science students in our College. Through this unique experience, they got to work with the students in a smaller, low-stakes setting that allowed them to really practice their classroom management skills, their questioning techniques, and work on developing appropriate relationships with students. They were mentored through this process by the high quality inservice teachers as well as the college faculty we had involved. Although they were exhausted by the end of the week, they all stated this was the best learning experience they have had thus far and really enjoyed the opportunity to grow as future educators and felt they gained a lot of STEM content knowledge alongside the students as well.

IMG_4767 copy — L-R Back – Andre Henderson, Brian True, Alex Freeman, William Schooler, Michael Delfino, Eric Garwood, Zeke Edwards; L-R Middle – Ben Wolfe, Maria Richards, Brittney Denton, Lydia Speler, Amy Allen, Tyler Waters, Chris Rogers, Clay Rehmel, Shelby Cameron; L-R Front Row Katherine Poe, Alanna Briggs, Jamie Kosel, Michael Plas

Craig, myself, Christa Jackson, Mark Evans, Gabe Brown, and Bruce Walcott are the team that make up the directors of the camp. We do everything from logistics to food to parent communication to anything else that needs to be done to help things run smoothly.

L-R Craig Schroeder, Christa Jackson, and Margaret Schroeder; Not pictured- Mark Evans, Bruce Walcott, and Gabe Brown (they were making sure everything was running smoothly while we were snapping pictures!)

Conversation starters…

Red and Blue Groups

What is nanotechnology?
What kinds of things repel water? Why do they need to repel water?
How do you make magic sand?
Peaches reflect water? I’ve never heard about that. Tell me more!
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?

Yellow and Green Groups

What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
What was your favorite lab you visited? What made it your favorite?
What challenge(s) did you complete in the Space Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?
What was your favorite part about STEM Camp?
Out of all the things you learned this week, what was the most interesting?
What career do you want to pursue when you get older? What kinds of classes are you going to need to take in order to be successful in your career?

Video of the Day… This video really exemplifies why we do this and why we feel it’s important for students to have these opportunities.

Check out the Camp Pictures here

Check out videos Here

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter – @seebluestemcamp

We thank you for a wonderful week with your students and hope you have an enjoyable rest of the summer!

Next year’s camp dates are tentatively set for June 8 – 12, 2015 at the University of Kentucky Colleges of Education and Engineering for rising 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.

June 26, 2014June 26, 2014

The Wonderful World of Engineering!

With all 143 students back on campus today we were all pretty busy…having lots of fun! Today was full of engineering fun for both groups. Red and blue groups had a blast with the Dr. Walcott and other College of Engineering staff. They got to tour the different facilities and laboraties the College of Engineering has. One of their favorites was going into the sound proof room…now if only we could get them to stay quiet for 30 seconds to really experience it 🙂 They also got to design an aluminum boat and test it’s floating capacity. In robotics, they got started on the Green City Challenge today and had a lot of great successes. There were lots of smiles and high-fives as the students completed the various tasks associated with the challenges. Tomorrow they are in for another treat with Dr. Brett Criswell and some nanotechnology action! Since the astronomy viewing was not available all week because of night time cloud cover, Dr. Tim Knauer – Director of the MacAdams Observatory – came over after his class today and set up his special telescope that allowed the students to view the sun directly. They were very excited to see the fiery ball and even a ring was visible! We only wish the other two groups could’ve seen it too, but he is teaching a class until 12:30 each day.

The yellow and green groups took to some design engineering activities with Mr. Doug Klein from Project Lead the Way. Mr. Klein had them building away during their session. The students were very excited to be “real engineers” for the day and got to design and build dams and levees. In robotics they started the newly-released Space Challenge. Since this is a new, it brought about it’s own set of challenges, but the kids did a great job of working through it all together, being patient, and working on programming. One group got up to 53 blocks for one program! Wow! Tomorrow they will get to end with a STEM Camp favorite – Dr. Bruce Walcott.

In their words…

The wonderful world of engineering! (Dr. Bruce Walcott) – red and blue Groups

I learned that when being an engineer you have to consider the volume of what your creating like what we did with the pennies.
That concrete boats float
Yes because I enjoy both math and science which are what you use in engineering.
The more the volume of a boat, the better it can float with weight.
I thought the activities made it fun.

Design Engineering – Mr. Doug Klein – yellow and green groups

Building the egg mobile
That we got to actually enginer stuff.
I learned how to build a dam.
I am interested in a career in engineering because I like to create things and solve problems.
Yes; engineering is all around us and is a big part in life.
Levees (effective ones, at least) can be made with tape, cardboard, dirt, and popsicle sticks.
It was interactive, fun, and included one of my possible careers.
Yes because I love Stem and it is my passion.

Conversation Starters…

Blue and Red Groups

What is a sound proof room? What makes it sound proof?
How many pennies were you able to put into your boat? What makes your boat float?
How did you find the area or dimensions of what your boat needed to be?
What was your favorite part of engineering today?
What challenge did you complete in the Green City Challenge?
How do you and your partner(s) work together to program and complete the challenges?

Yellow and Green Groups

What does it mean to be an engineer?
What do you need to build a successful levee or dam?
Talk to me about how you created your levee or dam today. What did you take into consideration as you built it?
What is an egg mobile?

Picture of the Day… Be sure to scroll through the pictures as I noticed that I didn’t hit accept to publish the pictures from yesterday. I’m missing half of the pictures from today so I will get them uploaded in the morning…my apologies…we’re trying hard to keep up with these great kids!