Monday, January 30, 2017

BUBBLE TROUBLE?

That's what Bowers' STEM specialist Laura Becker calls her  "I love science" face!

Her comments:

"I was so excited to be put 'inside' a bubble as a finale to our amazing CT Science Center demonstration assembly (which was held on 1-23-17). Students had some first hand experiences with scientific phenomena! Did you know you can toss bubbles if you are wearing gloves? Have you ever tried to make bubbles with different shapes? Can you put your hand through a bubble without it popping? All these questions and more were answered during our learning time!"

GRADE 5 ROBOTICS

The Martin team won the Judges Award.
Manchester Public Schools Elementary VEX IQ Robotics Club held their first robotics tournament on Saturday, January 21st at Illing Middle School. The Elementary VEX IQ Robotics Club is an after school program that is only open to 5th grade students to participate. We had close to 200 people that attended our event, which included 57 students participating in the tournament. 

All nine elementary schools represented with a total of 25 competing robots. We ran two competition playing fields to run all of our matches and the qualifying rounds. At the end of the tournament we held an award ceremony and acknowledge the following teams:  

Awards:
Teamwork Award - Verplanck Robot 18
Teamwork Award - Robertson Robot 16
Design Award - Buckley Robot 5
Excellence Award - Highland Park Robot 9
Judges Award - Martin Robot 14

Please check out the district Facebook page for more!

Scenes from Verplanck's pre-tournament preparations.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Dec. 6

Phone a Friend



For the past two weeks fifth graders at Keeney have been investigating sound.  In this investigation they were challenged to make a phone using paper clips, cups, and fishing line.  Then they had to explain how they thought their sound made it to their partner's ear, how they could stop their sound from getting to their partner's ear, and how to make their sound louder or clearer without changing their voice.

Getting Ready for the SFWIC

Science Fair With Invention Convention



The past few weeks have included lots of time spent encouraging students to participate in the district's Science Fair with Invention Convention. We featured six students in our Humans of Manchester (Public Schools) gallery ...







... and also added one STEM teacher -- Bill McDougal of Bowers ...













The best part was this hype video (CLICK HERE TO SEE IT), which featured taped segments made by students who took part last year:



Thursday, November 3, 2016

Thursday, Nov. 3

At Washington, Some Friction Action


 
Here are some pictures and student work samples from a first grade lab on friction. Students learned about friction by testing out cars on sandpaper and construction paper.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Moonlighting


Moonlighting

That's John Niemann of Martin (far right) demonstrating to colleagues how he teaches his students about phases of the moon during a PD session for the entire STEM department earlier this week. The photos above show Martin fifth-graders using their observational skills to learn why the moon's appearance changes over time. The worksheets helped them capture and process the information.


.


Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Tuesday, Oct. 11




STEM at Martin

Students at Martin Elementary have been been busy (something that surely can be said at the eight other elementary schools as well) and we have a bunch of photos that seemed to be best shared via video.  Enjoy!