Have you ever wondered how we can introduce elementary students to as much STEM curriculum as possible? Do you wish you could get help from the outside world? As a 5th grade teacher interested in preparing my students for their future, the idea of participating in the Kenan Fellows Program was incredibly appealing to me.

Middle school students (grades 6-8) will be able to create custom 3D printed forms to add to Bosch's EcoShape Kit to invent a new way to use the kit, focusing on the discipline of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math).

Global warming explains the rising climate temperatures in the last century. Several gases in Earth’s atmosphere contribute to maintaining the warm temperatures on Earth’s surface.

Students will explore their interests and goals to share with a broader audience. An autobiographical video allows middle school students an opportunity to present themselves to adults and peers. Speaking to an audience of adults and peers is one of the key interpersonal skills that we would like students to develop.

During this lesson, students will be introduced to how mathematical statistics influence real-life situations so that they can use those skills to create solutions to problems in their everyday lives. Prior to this lesson, students have researched a real-life current event that personally affects them.

To show my students how to use math and science, I use time after and during school to demonstrate the possibilities they have for their future involving STEM. After partnering with parents and members of the community, I have created my schools first Robotics Club and I facilitate the Data Science Seminar once a week. Please use this site as a resource to help guide your endeavors of using STEM in the classroom.

Over a period of two days, students will complete a design challenge centered around sustainable exterior building products that are designed for high performance during severe hailstorms. This lesson uses Design Thinking as a framework for students to learn how climate change is impacting more than just the environment.

This Project-Based Learning (PBL) lesson is originally designed for the STEM Capstone course at Athens Drive Magnet High School in Raleigh, NC. This course was created as the final project course for senior students in the high school’s STEM Energy and Sustainability Academy.

The curriculum for the course focuses on developing engineering mindsets and approaches to problem solving. This PBL is meant to apply those procedures to chemical looping research and development being completed at NC State University by Dr. Fanxing Li and his research team. The PBL begins by defining the problem of CO2 overproduction as a result of fossil fuel usage and ends with students designing their own chemical looping combustion power plant in an attempt to address the problem.

Students will work in groups of 3-4 to create a Planet Snoopy exhibit (3-D model and map). The purpose of the Planet Snoopy redesign is to demonstrate how sound and the size of the rides affects an amusement park's design. Students will take on the role of architects.

This lesson allows students to take on the role of real scientists, as they identify species from one another. Dr. Reade Robert’s lab research focuses especially on Lake Malawi Cichlids, which are some of the most colorful of the Family Cichlidae. There are more than 1,600 described species of cichlids, worldwide, and they comprise one of the largest vertebrae families on Earth.

In this lesson, students will apply the scientific method—using N-P-K soil test kits on a local farm—to develop a real-world application of how abiotic factors, like nitrogen, can impact the rate of photosynthesis, protein synthesis, and the cost of the food we eat.

This lesson plan utilizes candy, sports, and air pollution to explore scatterplots and
correlation of variables. It is adapted from Section 3.1 in The Practice of Statistics Sixth Edition by Starnes and Tabor.

Students will explore the states of matter, and collaborate to design a recipe to make the perfect dough. They will need to use what they know about balancing solids and liquids to find the best recipe.

In collaboration with the FREEDM Systems Center at NC State University and The Science House, Melaine Rickard developed curricula that highlights the importance of research into sources of renewable energy. From her study of switching devices that monitor and control highly-variable power loads, electric power storage devices and the transport of energy produced by renewable sources including electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels, she created three lessons.

A unit on Global Collaboration that uses the topic of Water Quality to teach the skills of a modern workplace. In this lesson, students will complete a variety of hands-on activities to discover the importance of expertise. Each student will identify their own unique skills and, through a modified jigsaw activity, learn the importance of diverse teams that include many different skills.

In this lesson, students will identify math in the natural world, build a number line, and create their own artwork using mathematical properties of the Fibonacci sequence. Students will read various texts to discover the sequence and examples in the world. They will then use their own work and calculators to extend the sequence on a number line. This work can be scaffolded for students’ readiness levels.

During this lesson, students are guided through an initial understanding of electrical energy and production. As their learning progresses, they will explore energy production using photovoltaics (PVs) and use the National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL) on-line simulator, PVWatts.

Start a school-based FIRST Lego League Team and compete in a regional challenge.

Students create exercise/play equipment for a playground based on animals that they have chosen and researched. Students will have an opportunity to move through Active Brain Lab stations that are designed with 2 different animals in mind (dog and frog).

This project will focus on the development of a student-to-student instructional program to foster collaboration and promote active learning in the school environment. Students will acquire peer teaching and learning strategies to be applied in any subject area.