What do Rube Goldberg, STEM and Literacy have in common?
That’s a good question. I have been invited to share our Rube Goldberg experiences as a Featured Speaker at the UNI Elementary Literacy Conference.
Interestingly enough, I will be sharing the stage with Dr. Beth Van Meeteren (STEM in PreK-3rd Grades: A Reason to Develop Literacy); Marcy Seavey (Finding the Citizen Scientist in Every Child); and Rick Vanderwall (Media and Drama Integration with Literacy) It will be an exciting opportunity for all.
Today I will be sharing our Rube Goldberg experiences in the 6th Grade Waverly-Shell Rock Middle School. We will discuss the explorational process that we experienced while creating our own inventions to accomplish simple tasks. These tasks might be turning off a light, erasing a blackboard, or popping a balloon. These may seem like meaningless tasks, but its not about turning out a light. The emphasis of this process is the creative problem solving that our students experienced while they were building these inventions.
If you want to learn more about my presentation, you can refer to my other posts in DrZReflects. The Slide Show is available in the list below as well as some of the other resources that I used in preparation.
- UNI Elementary Literacy Conference.
- UNI Teaching STEM Elements Using Rube Goldberg Inventions Powerpoint slideshow
- Invent Tomorrow Links – List of the links I used sharing Rube Goldberg resources.
- Rube Goldberg Inc.
- Purdue University 2014 Rube Goldberg Winners
- Rube Goldberg Ideas video
- Nationalacademies – STEM Integration in K-12 Education – GREAT 4 minute video!!
- StemAdvantage.org – Good source for STEM Stats
- TeachThought – Incredible Education Blog
Project-Based Learning
- Difference between Projects and Project-Based Learning
- Buck Institute for Education – Leading resource for Problem-Based Learning
Leave a comment and keep the discussion going.