Students from all grade levels have been busy in the engineering lab this fall! Just before the holidays, CPS teacher Ginny Lamere recently sent CEF a brief update on some of her highlights over the past few months:
Instead of a 1-day activity, the 8th grade was in the Engineering Room for a week working on an Egg Zipline. They designed, built, tested and inevitably, redesigned and retested a container that ran down a zipline holding an egg then released it into a basket without breaking the egg.
I have been working with the librarian, Maya Bery, to have students do an “Hour of Code,” an international event that has students do one hour of (computer) coding, (programming). This movement is huge. This nation is not producing nearly enough computer scientists, programmers, computer engineers and software engineers to fill the growing number of jobs in that area. So we need to start early to expose kids to this type of thinking and encourage them to continue.
CCHS science teacher Elaine Picard and I are running a Robotics STEAM Class after school starting in January with Hummingbird kits the CEF bought last spring. Also, there is a workshop in January led by Wendy Stack & Brad Cranston to teach other teachers how to use these robotic kits.
The Robotics Club (using LEGO Mindstorms kits) and LEGOs at Lunch (for 3rd graders) continue.
Please thank the CEF once again for outfitting this Engineering Room. It is a terrific space! I am daily thankful for the many cabinets and and long counters. Having a cart of computers is tremendous. You (The CEF) make a difference in education here.