Coders use a variety of blocks and sprites to create a multi-page story about being very tiny. The purpose of this project is to reinforce the “go to page” blocks and to apply previous understandings across multiple pages.

Coders review and apply a variety of blocks and sprites to animate a multi-page project about talking animals. The purpose of this project is to review using the message blocks with multiple sprites and pages.

Coders revisit a previously created project about outer space to add a short story about travelling to outer space. The purpose of this project is to apply newly acquired understandings to a prior project.

Coders use a variety of blocks and sprites to animate multiple jokes. The purpose of this project is to reinforce understandings of storyboarding multiple pages and applying prior understandings into a project of interest.

Coders use a variety of blocks and sprites to create a multi-page story about a stinky robot. The purpose of this project is to apply previous understandings across multiple pages.

Coders use a variety of blocks and sprites to create a multi-page story about a day at the beach. The purpose of this project is to introduce multiple ways to have a sprite appear to switch costumes.

Coders revisit a previously created project about a dance party to add a short story about travelling to the dance party. The purpose of this project is to apply newly acquired understandings to a prior project.

Coders engage in a multi-day project where they create the introduction to a short story and then pass their project on to be finished by their peers. The purpose of this project is to encourage young coders to communicate and learn from their peers.

Dan Meyer's Three Act Math task on proportions. Learners work with ratios and proportions, to determine how to fix the incorrectly mixed paint.

Cover Sheet
Teacher Example

A simple step-by-step guide to working with the maya graphe editor by creating a bouncing ball.

3-D Mapping | Topography
By Dana Hoppe, Copyright 2018 by Dana Hoppe under Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. Individuals and organizations may copy, reproduce, distribute, and perform this work and alter or remix this work for non-commercial purposes only.

Download: 3-D_MappingTopography.pdfDelete

Topography - Design Challenge
Introduction - Expanded learning opportunities (ELOs) have the potential to be the great equalizer in American education. Regular participation in high quality before and afterschool learning, and enriching summer school programs have been shown to help low-income students succeed academically on par with their more affluent peers. These programs, characterized by strong school-community partnerships, can also help high-performing students stay engaged and achieve even greater levels of understanding. In short, high-quality ELOs are for everyone - and the benefits they create are critical to Nebraska's future economy. - Beyond School Bells I would like to thank Beyond School Bells as well as Nebraska Innovation Studio for providing me with the opportunity, resources, and encouragement to develop this program as an Innovation Fellow. Their willingness to give the intellectual and creative freedom to build upon my ideas and inspirations is what enabled this program to exist. I strongly believe that opportunities such as the Innovation Fellowship are planting the seeds for Nebraska's future. -Dana Hoppe, Program Creator

Concept and Purpose - Interdisciplinary Learning: This program is focused on developing fundamental STEM skills through interdisciplinary learning. The truth is that all areas of study overlap significantly in one way or another, and the cognitive skills that lead to success in one area surely extend to other areas. A recurring theme I have noticed through my personal experience of being and artist as well as a scientist is that I have heavily utilized my creative thinking abilities to solve challenging problems. Imagination and creativity, when combined with background knowledge and understanding, allow us to find solutions that often lie beyond the rigid structure often associated with mathematics and the sciences. Once we begin to see the overlap between these areas, we begin building bridges between them and new ideas and applications emerge from a formerly empty space. The concept of topography was always interesting to me. The strangeness of being able to discern the shape of the land simply from the distance between a hypnotizing assortment of lines on a flat piece of paper was immediately intriguing. How does this flat sheet of abstract shapes translate to the three-dimensional complexity of a mountain, a valley, or a bluff? Topography is the platform of this program because it is a very versatile concept and can be used to create art and models representing a diverse range of fields. The activities in this program focus on having the students follow processes often found in Computer Science. Every process they complete can be thought of as an algorithm, and when they repeat steps, it can be thought of as a loop. They are also recursively calling the same function on each resulting piece they create, mimicking the concept of dynamic programing. The permutation matrix activities will familiarize students with moving through the data in a matrix and adding data to stacks. While they are doing all of these activities, however, there will be no jargon they have to learn, and they will probably not even realize until they take their first Computer Science course that it is even related. To the students, they will simply be creating art in a new and interesting way.

Play-Doh model of a geologic map

Provenance: Carol Ormand Ph.D., Carleton College
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.
Students analyze a geologic map of an angular unconformity that truncates a pair of dikes, with some topography. When students have deciphered the map and constructed a cross-section, I show them a Play-Doh model of the geology and ask them to compare it to their mental model of the area.

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Students see firsthand that stars and constellations are not arranged in a flat, 2-D pattern in this Moveable Museum unit. The five-page PDF guide includes suggested general background readings for educators, activity notes, step-by-step directions, and a Big Dipper map. Students make their own 3-D models of the Big Dipper using readily available materials and examine their models, observing the 3-D constellation from new perspectives.

Step by step instructions to print numbered dice for games using a 3D printer and TinkerCad design.

Create 3D printed components for a vegetable/fruit STEM racer!

From the article:

"These 3D printed STEM race cars are the perfect project based learning tool to help teachers get kids excited about science, technology, engineering, math, and nutrition to boot! The racers I show you how to make in this instructable will provide an opportunity to turn almost anything (no kittens or other live things please) into a race car – allowing different sized and weighted objects to illustrate mechanical physics concepts like mass, friction, force, speed, distance, and gravity!"

Design and create your own custom, 3D printed zipper pull! This project utilizes Tinkercad and some simple tools.