Category: stem
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Scratch Coding Resources
I received an email earlier this year from a teacher in South Africa who is interested in starting a school and including coding in the curriculum. I finally responded to that message (yikes!) asking for links to CODING RESOURCES I use and have shared, including resources for using Scratch coding from MIT. These are the…
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Plants in Space
These are my notes from the SPACE 2024 presentation, “Planting Other Worlds” by Melissa Sleeper and Lisa Dupuy. The session description is: Tired of the same old plant growth lessons? Help spark student interest in agriculture using Space as the hook. When humans go to settle the Moon and Mars, they will have to eat.…
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Host an Astronomy Night
These are my notes from the SPACE 2024 presentation, “How to Host an Astronomy Night: Astronomy in Elementary and Middle School Classrooms” by Peter Tlusty (Mr. T) NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador / Richmond Astronomical Society Member. Links about Peter: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ambassadors/2159 “Tech teacher honored for out-of-this world lessons” (March 2023) I’m an amateur astronomer! Now teaching…
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Visualizing Off-Planet Habitats
My middle school computer programming students are continuing to work on our “Coding Mars” unit, in which they are using Minecraft MakeCode to simulate the 3D printing of structures and habitats which Icon of Austin, Texas, is under contract with NASA to do first on the moon / the lunar surface and (ultimately) on Mars.…
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Social Media Text Prepper
It is now possible to use generative AI / artificial intelligence platforms, like ChatGPT 4, to create simple to relatively complex web applications without knowing the precise syntax of programming languages. By formulating detailed prompts for the AI chatbot, it is possible to create code in various languages (including javascript and HTML) which the user…
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Reflections on PD Hackathon 2023
Today I’ve had an opportunity to participate, facilitate, and volunteer as a judge in our fall 2023 Hackathon at our school, Providence Day School of Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the second time I’ve been able to be part of the Hackathon, and in this post I’d like to reflect a little about some of…
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Space Club Dreams
Shelly Fryer and I have a “slow hunch” that we should start a SPACE CLUB at school. Shelly and I are both “space geeks” and love sharing “all things space” with our students. My class “Wonder Links” frequently include videos and websites about space and space exploration. This past week, we watched and discussed both…
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Stephen Wolfram on Computational Thinking
These are my reflections and takeaways from a captivating 40-minute fireside chat with Stephen Wolfram, shared on August 4, 2023 during the AI x Education Conference streamed via Zoom. Stephen is the “CEO of the software company Wolfram Research where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine,” which are two web-based computational platforms I want…
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“Dance Off” Lego Robotics Challenge
My middle school robotics students are having fun and learning a lot, working through the freely available Carnegie Mellon Lego Spike Prime Robotics curriculum unit on “Movement.” I have 6th, 7th and 8th grade students in this class. Since some students always finish faster than others, I’ve created an optional “Lego Robotics Bonus Challenge” for…