STEM Adventures Through EiE
Dr. Marie Steckelberg
October 2020
“It is great to see the kids so engaged, persistent and excited the entire time!” is a common comment from the site directors at Custer, Edgemont and Hermosa. The Rapid City YMCA Southern Hills grantees launched the first 21st Century Learning Center STEM training October 18th led by Dr. Marie Steckelberg and Mari Biehl. Seven educators came together to prepare for their first Engineering is Elementary: Engineering Adventure (EA)--Liftoff: Engineering Rockets and Rovers. Focusing on the engineering design process (EDP), the educators experienced all six adventures of the unit both as an educator and as a student.
As educators and with much anticipation, they dug into their kits and explored each lesson to determine the learning goal, envision how their students would respond to the adventure, and collaborate on strategies to overcome any barriers that might impede the students’ engineering experiences. Wearing their “student hat” the educators experienced the adventures from the learner perspective as they built towers to keep an animal safe from alligators and designed rovers and rockets to transport the rovers to a far-off planet or moon. There was much fun, laughter and excitement as these leaders in our after-school program community stomped on the rocket launchers!
According to Kelsey Trotter, Edgemont Site Director, the kids loved hearing the messages from India and Jacob. India and Jacob, a world traveling brother and sister duo, introduce each adventure in all Engineering Adventure units. They find problems and solve them using engineering. These downloadable messages set the context for each adventure of the unit.
Following the workshop, Marie and Mari traveled among the sites throughout the week assisting the site directors and their staff in putting all they had learned into practice. While immersed in the Liftoff Adventure and focusing on the problem India and Jacob give them, the students build problem-solving, teamwork, communication, and creative thinking skills. They are applying the engineering design process by asking, imagining, planning, creating, and improving on their decisions and designs. At the end of the unit adventure, students will showcase their engineering skills and final rocket design to audiences of their choice.
Another important element of this curriculum designed specifically for out-of-school time programs is the journal. This is where the students record data, design, and reflect. It was awesome to see students sharing how proud they were of their writing in the journal.
The third element of this professional development is virtual group reflections held after each day Marie and Mari are onsite. The site directors enjoyed this time as it provided them an opportunity to discuss what went well for the day, to learn how others implemented the lessons and to persevere and validate their efforts.
If you have not already booked your site’s experience in STEM adventures through EiE, please contact Dr. Steckelberg at marie@steckelbergconsulting.com or 605-660-2369.
I strongly encourage any programs who are able to use the training offered by Marie and Mari to take advantage of the opportunity. These ladies offer a quality, fun program that our kids have thoroughly enjoyed learning with this week.
Erica VanHorn, RC YMCA - Southern Hills
Liftoff: Engineering Rockets and Rovers is only one of 11 units from which to choose. The focus of the units include auroras, bubbles, recycling, invasive species, music, space, earthquakes, avalanches and more.
Book your STEM adventures through EiE!
If you have not already booked your site’s experience in STEM adventures through EiE, please contact Dr. Steckelberg at marie@steckelbergconsulting.com or 605-660-2369.