stem scoop...levels 2 & 3 in the beginning of november, level 3 students will begin their next...
TRANSCRIPT
STEM SCOOP
“No Act of
Kindness,
however
small, is ever
wasted.”
-Aesop
In This Issue
NJHS
Levels 2, 3 & 6
Students of the
Month
Primary & Technolo-
gy
Playground equip-
ment & Feature
Teachers
From the Principals... CSA families,
The month of October has been quite busy for CSA students, staff, and families. We successfully inducted eleven students into NJHS, had students build/decorate our homecoming float, and parent teacher conferences to name a few of the events. Following parent teacher conferences, please reach out if you have further questions or concerns.
We cannot believe that November is already upon us. At CSA we have a great deal to be thankful for! With that said, we want to encourage parents to volunteer for our day of gratitude as well as everyday worktime in our classrooms. Please seek out opportunities to support your child's classroom. In addition, both buildings have a volunteer bulletin board with ideas for supporting our classrooms.
Project based learning continues to drive instruction at CSA. Many projects around our school are coming to an end, while others are just beginning. Teach-ers are always looking for experts in various fields, so please reach out to teach-ers with areas where you would be able to support PBL in our school as an expert. We house this information in a central location for all teachers to access. Finally, please do not forget to follow us on Facebook and the WPS app.
Kind Regards, Brenda Martin & Heather McGuire
Colorado STEM Academy Newsletter November 2016
National Junior Honor Society On October 13th, 2016, Colorado STEM Academy inducted it’s second group of National Junior Honor Society members. New members include: Kevin Castillo, Caitlyn Harlow, Willow Wilson, Logan Kessel, Gavin Peterson, Denise Gutierrez, Alex-andra Garcia Martinez, Nevaeh Davis, Chau Nguyen, Freddie Budgell, Katelynn Ibrahim, Serena Gonzalez, and JR Loya. They join returning members: Danielle Duran, Garrett Fergu-son, Tyler George, Julieanna Knief, Ian McGillicuddy, James Overberg, Pierce Smeester, and Passion Steinhaus. Each member was selected based on their citizenship, leader-ship, character, scholoarship, and service. NJHS members are committed to helping their school and community. Some of the items they are currently working on are volunteering at the Scholastic Book Fair, creating morning meeting ideas for grades K-8, and helping mentor elementary students.
NJHS has big plans for the future including a schoolwide penny war competition to help raise money for local charities, selling wooden roses during Valentine’s week, and taking part in the Day of No Hate in April. NJHS is always looking for new ways to be involved in the school community as well as the local community so if you know of any great opportuni-ties, feel free to let us know.
Levels 2 & 3 In the beginning of November, level 3 students will begin their next PBL called Science of Flight PBL. Air is all around us. We know that air can hold up heavier-than-air objects such as kites, gliders, and airplanes, but how does it do that? What forces act on an airplane or glider? Students will use aerodynamic concepts to explain how the motion of air and other forces act on gliders and other aircraft. During the Science of Flight PBL, students will learn about the forces involved in flight as well as Newton’s Laws of Mo-tion. Then they will design, build, and test an experimental model glider to find out how air and other forces affect its flight. In addition, they will apply a design process to the problem of delivering aid to an area where supplies must be airlifted in and dropped to the ground from an aircraft. Also this fall, our level 2 students will begin their next PBL called Preventing Landslides: Save the City! In this Project Lead the Way module students will explore how the surface of the Earth is always changing. They will be introduced to differ-ent kinds of maps and explore how these maps convey different kinds of information about the world we live in, including where water is found on Earth. Students will investigate the different forces that shape the surface of the Earth and de-sign solutions to limit the impact of erosion on a fictional community.
Greetings from Level 6! Or should we say,
"Beep bop beep!"
Level 6 is working on a Robotics PBL this month. In this project-based engineering lesson, our students are exploring different types of robots and how they help our society, learning about sensors and how to use a robot's inputs and out-puts, how robots can fix environmental issues, and even designing and building our own ro-bots! Be sure to ask your students about what they are learning in our robotics unit.
Students of the Month
Damian Espinoza
Maeve Stoller
Ivan Vang
Micah Lockwood
Erick Cochenour
Noah Lucero
Sean Kelly
Nathan McCracken
Hunter Goll
Layla March
Kayden Duran
Kevin Schlessman
Logan Kessell
Tahlia Fish
Ixchel Velasco Bau-tista
Giselle Laguna
Ashton Hall
Kevin Castillo
Michelle Rascon
Rickie Burns
Nevaeh Davis
See What Our Primary Students are up to!
Kindergarten and Level One classes have
absolutely loved Buddy Reading with Level
four and five kids! Since August, Miss Pitz’s
class has visited K-1 classes several times to
read picture books with younger kids one-on-
one. For Primary kids, spending time with
older kids and hearing them read is a high-
light of our day.
K-1 kids continue to explore books at the Irving Street Library. The walk
over is a huge adventure. Read aloud time with the librarian is a big treat.
In the afternoons, Kindergarten and Primary classes explore topics in
weather, light, and sound. In Miss Brooks’s class, kids go outside to ob-
serve fall weather changes, and record what they see. In Miss McCor-
mick’s and Mrs. Yameen’s classes, kids collaborate to tackle challenges in
light and sound. Kids must consider: how can we communicate with lim-
ited materials, such as string, cups, and paper clips; or with just a flashlight and a mirror?
Red Ribbon Week has been a huge hit in Primary, with almost 100% participation throughout the
week. Kids were preppie in plaid and buttons on Monday. Ninja turtle pajamas were popular on
Tuesday. Fairies and wizards floated in on Thursday.
Technology Education
Our primary engineers are at it again! Mrs. Yameen’s class is learning about the design process
through architecture. As a team builder, students used their knowledge of shapes in a competition to
build the tallest structure out of five sheets of paper and masking tape! We had some very creative
results. Throughout our PBL, students will learn aspects of communities and architecture to create
haunted houses for our Trick or Treat Street at the middle school.
Above: Jeff & Dillon won
the challenge with a 14 “
tower
Right: Students hard at
work in the build lab.
Above: Selena & Natalle
came in 2nd place with a
cylindrical 11” tower
Left: We never said that
engineering wasn’t
messy!
Q & A
Do you have a burning
question you would like an-
swered about Colorado
STEM Academy? Send
your question to Mrs. Martin
at bmar-
tin@westminsterpublicschoo
ls.org, with the subject line
“burning question.” Maybe
we’ll feature your question in
next month’s newsletter!
New Playground Equipment @ CSA
The Colorado STEM Academy is excited about all our new recess
equipment! In addition to a large shipment of basketballs, hoola
hoops, footballs and volleyballs, students can now enjoy tetherball,
foursquare, and basketball. The district crew used the long week-
end in October to paint basketball, foursquare and tetherball courts
onto our blacktop. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, CSA’s parent-run
wellness committee sponsors a walking club for students. Kids do
laps around our field to walk the equivalent of a 14,000 foot moun-
tain! Students in all grade levels are loving all the options for re-
cess.
Left: Jordan and Kori play a friendly game of tetherball
Below Right: Kyle and Logan are committed members of the walk-
ing club!
Left: The girls get
their feet stamped
for completing a
lap.
Below Left: Miles
and Ryan go back
& forth in tetherball
Below: Intermediate
students love play-
ing foursquare
Reminders
Children under the age of
twelve cannot go to the
library after school unsu-
pervised.
Students should be
wearing a STEM shirt to
school every day. STEM
shirts are now available.
Please see visit the
school store Monday,
Wednesday, Friday from
3:30-4:00
Fall weather will be com-
ing soon! Please make
sure your child comes
prepared with a jacket
every day.
Like STEM? Make it offi-
cial. Follow us on Face-
book at Colorado STEM
Academy. See the amaz-
ing pics of the crea-
tive projects your kids
make at STEM. Share our
page with your network.
Feature Teachers Moira McCormick: I absolutely love getting to know the students in my primary classroom at CSA this year. Morning meeting and read aloud are my favorite parts of the day.
I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, where I moved back to after I finished Bache-lor of Arts in Political Science at Davidson College in North Carolina. I spent time work-ing with youth through my job at the YWCA and it changed my life. I started what would become several years of volunteer teaching reading and writing to adults. Soon after, I enrolled in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder to study elementary education.
Michelle Vadnais: I absolutely love being able to create cre-ative learning projects this year with my students through project-based learning. Some of my favorite projects creat-ed this year are the Dystopian Societies, where students made our own dystopian worlds to learn author's point of view with our class book, Oreo Moon Phases, made models of meteor crashes, foreign politics presentations, invented our own ideal presidential candidate for writing narratives, our robotics PBL, and our chalk solar system. Learning with my level 6 kids has been a real adventure, and it has been extremely rewarding to see my students grow in their learn-ing and confidence while learning how to use a STEM thought process. I absolutely love this school, and can't wait
to see what the rest of the school year brings! It has been an absolute privilege to work with all of my students and their parents so far this year.
Colorado STEM Academy: Preparing Today’s Student for Life
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 Early Release 3 4 1st Trimester
Ends
5
6 7 8 9 10 11 Awards
Assembly
12
13 14 15 16 Early Release 17 18 Festival of
Gratitude
19
20 21 No School 22 No School 23 No School 24 No School 25 No School 26
27 28 29 30
NOVEMBER 2016