This week, 7th and 8th graders began a reverse engineering project. Students have chosen an item to take apart to explore its component parts and how it is put together. Throughout their take aparts process, groups are documenting their progress and keeping a Bill of Materials, which is an itemized list of each component part. Students will then use their parts to create an artistic composition and consider how they might redesign their item to improve its effectiveness, efficiency, ethicalness, and beauty.
Several times each year, our school specialist team works together to create integrated units of study, where students explore a common theme through each of our content areas -- art, music, library/multimedia, PE, and STEM. Our 7th and 8th graders recently completed a Winter Carnival themed unit, where they worked on creating products or performances to showcase during a special carnival event for students in grades PK-2. In STEM class, students designed, built, and improved automata, which are mechanical devices that generate motion through a series of spinning cams, axles, and cam followers. Image Source: Adafruit The following success criteria guided the work for our 7th & 8th grade students: The automata must have a winter theme. The automata must feature at least one element that spins, goes up or down, or moves side to side. The automata design must include at least 10 different materials. Additionally, students were challenged to create a...
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