The nonprofit organization Science, Engineering and Mathematics Link, Inc. (SEM Link) is hosting its 9th Annual STEM Career Fair and Exhibition. It will be held on Saturday, April 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Georgia Institute of Technology. Admission to the career fair is free and will provide K-12 students with an opportunity to explore careers and meet and interact with professionals in these fields. Learn more and GET TICKETS here: http://m.ajc.com/news/business/employment/stem-career-fair-will-give-kids-opportunity-learn/nqcnx/
Not so simple machines...
Mrs. Waters' class tackled pulleys using the VEX kits and Invention Publisher app as we continue to explore simple machines in fourth grade.
Oobleck!
Oobleck
Named for Dr. Seuss' "Bartholomew and the Oobleck", this non-Newtonian liquid is made from just corn starch and water - apparently the messiest (but coolest) combination around!
Thanks everyone for the Valentine's Day notes!
valentines
STEAM in (lights... camera...) Action!
The band OK Go is at it again. I like their music, but the videos they produce are STEM/STEAM up and down and back. Check out the newest one below (shot in zero gravity), but be sure to look at the Rube Goldberg machine video too. The lyrics and themes are pretty acceptable. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGJA9i18Co[/embed]
For any future physicists: Einstein’s ripples in spacetime final seen!
"Far from our galaxy, in the vast darkness of space, two massive black holes merged into a single, larger hole. And now researchers say they have detected rumblings from that cataclysmic collision as ripples in the very fabric of space-time itself. The discovery comes a century after Albert Einstein first predicted such ripples should exist." Read more from the NPR article here:
All the little birdies go:
Tweet Tweet Tweet! You can now follow all of Tritt Elementary on Twitter @TrittSTEM!
Is it a bird? No. Definitely not.
We continued our final plane launches in Mrs. Salo's class today. Next ... we'll do a lesson on framing a video shot using our iPads :-) Part 1
Part 2
Tower, this is Ghost Rider requesting a flyby.
We launched the last of our airplanes in Mrs. Benson's class today. Results are classified. I could tell you, but then... (JK, the longest was 216", the heaviest was 0.90 oz). [embed]https://youtu.be/bRLRVagVf5s[/embed]
Seeding young minds.
Our flowers have been pollinated, and if they weren't plastic then that means the plant could make seeds. But then, how do the seeds get around? Mrs. Adams class braved the snowy weather today to count acorns in our raised garden beds. The further the bed was from the tree, the fewer acorns we found in each bed. The kiddos all agreed that they would want to be in the bed with the fewest acorns - it might mean less acorn friends, but a better chance of growing up into a tree. Of course, most of what we found were lids, so there must be some pretty happy squirrels around Tritt!
We found over 300 acorns in the bed directly under the tree, over 100 in the one next to it, then 74, then 24, and then fewer than 10 in the furthest garden bed. 
And then we played for a couple of minutes, because snow.
We don't always use toys for science...
.... but when we do we are learning about forces in Kindergarten! [embed]https://youtu.be/U5FK1ia-LjE[/embed]
No leverage on a snow day...
Hard to have leverage on a snow day, unless you are making your own levers!!! Mrs. Blick's class was barely distracted by all the snow coming down today!
Building Inclined Planes
Other the next 3 weeks we are building Inclined Planes, Levers and Pulleys in 4th grade. Mrs. DeMeester's class is wrapping up the inclined planes today:
Wrapping up Pollination
Mrs. G's and Friend's class wrap up pollination:
Mrs. Lupiani's class wraps up Snap Circuits.
Jack/Jack/Will experimented with parallel circuits in ways no other class had, while Mary Scott made a game controller for her team's circuit board! Way to wrap up our series on circuits!
Here comes the sun!
We made sun trackers in 2nd grade this week. Next up will take a look at the sun's shadow as it moves across Tritt throughout the day! This will be vital information as we work to solve our STEM challenge: how to protect the playground from hot, sunny days!
Busy as bees!
Mrs. Moffett's class learned how difficult pollination could bee! We used silk flowers, pipe cleaners and corn starch to try pollinating flowers just like bees, moths, birds, wind and of course, gardeners!
Girl inventor perfects plates for kids!
Ruby Lucken, who spends much of her free time inventing things, created the Food Cubby for kids who want plates where foods don't mush up together. Photo by Bill Brown Photography.
This is a great story from the Denver Post about a Kindergardner using the engineering design process to solve a problem:
Ruby Lucken didn't like different foods touching on her plate. Two years ago, when she was 6, her parents got rid of their plastic-divider kid plates in a purge of kitchen cabinets.
Ruby, a pint-sized inventor who loves to tinker, used some modeling clay to create a curved wall on her plate, and then wondered if a different material would suction better.
Her parents lent her some seed money, and she tested prototypes until she found something that met her approval — it suctioned so well that it lifted the plate.
So then she worked with an engineer to create some easy pull-off tabs, and last summer she started selling her invention — called the Food Cubby — at local farmers markets.
To her family’s surprise, this simple solution is also good for people with special needs or older people who need help at mealtime. The semi-circle cubbies suction onto your plate, but they do more than just keep foods separate. The cubbies create a “wall” to help push food onto a fork or spoon.
It's really quite simple.
Fourth grade is continuing their work on simple machines this semester with Mrs. Blick's class creating inclined planes with the VEX construction kits and the Autodesk Inventor app on the classroom tablets.
The Great Backyard Bird Count
GBBC_Hero_Downy Woodpecker-6653_Sascha Forte_PA_2013
The Great Backyard Bird Count is a free, fun, and easy event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of bird populations. Participants are asked to count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of the four-day event and report their sightings online at birdcount.org. Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, from beginning bird watchers to experts, and you can participate from your backyard, or anywhere in the world. We'll be working on this citizen science project in both Green Paws and Science Detectives over the next couple of weeks.