Someone's URSA Experience 2022

This week I took all of the background information I have been researching and studying and finally start our STEAM Neurodivergent-friendly curriculum. With these past two weeks of what I wanted the curriculum to be shaped like, it is time to get some baselines down and get everything set in place for a possible test round. I made the curriculum adaptable to most if not all grades, but more specifically I made it for middle school-age children. Hopefully I will be able to test out this curriculum in the coming months, and make revisions to this curriculum as needed. I wanted to cover a variety of fun and engaging STEAM field topics, such as aviation/rockets, physics, car derby, and other projects that have a little bit of math, science, engineering but still get the kids thinking creatively and solving solutions outside of the box.

Note: This curriculum doesn’t follow a typical class and can be formed into any class that uses STEAM topics, but it is specifically designed for a class-based solely on STEAM projects. This is also just a baseline, and I will go further into details later on each topic covered in the class to further engage students, and this curriculum can be adapted to other classes/topics because of how I have designed it thus far with the ways that it is taught and the project based learning.

If there is extra time in the semester at the school this is class is taught, the other week or two weeks available in class can be spent doing an electricity unit, comprising of teaching the basics of circuits and electricity, and then using that information to then build a low voltage potato clock or lemon battery, by the choice of the students in the class. This unit would be in accordance with many of the standards that I listed above.

When teaching these units, the main focus is always going to be understanding by the students of the material and teamwork and participation from the students. Almost all of the units listed above are group-based projects and are meant to be completed by a group of 3 or more students to foster a team environment where everyone’s strengths are highlighted, and weaknesses are worked further on to improve. Lectures would be kept short and direct, with not too much information all at once and a ‘nobody left behind’ attitude in the class. This means that the class would function much more smoothly if there were teachers’ aides or helpers in the class to make sure that everyone is in understanding and knows how to work with the material or do the assignment.

Here is a rundown of each unit and what the content would entail:

• Unit 1: Physics and Eggs: Covering the basics of physics, including but not limited to, Newton’s laws of gravity, gravity and gravitational pull, mass vs weight, energy and inertia, and motion.
• Unit 2: Beginning Engineering: Covering basic engineering terms and including applications and types of engineering. This unit will also cover therbligs and engineering techniques such as modeling and design aspects.
• Unit 3: Chemistry 101: Covering the fundamentals of chemistry and the beginnings of chemical equations and balancing. The unit will also cover molar mass, the different types of reactions, and chemistry safety.
• Unit 4: Geology and You: Covering the creation of the Earth, different types of rocks, identifying different crystals, and how geologists conduct their research. The field trip option includes taking students out to a beach/rock wall and having them identify 5 different types of rocks with extra credit if they find a real geode that can be later cracked in class.
• Unit 5: How to Design and the Scientific Method: This unit will cover the scientific method and will go over all of the steps and how to conduct research successfully. The unit will also cover design methods and prototyping.
• Unit 6: Earthquakes and Natural Disasters: This unit will cover the basic facts of natural disasters and their causes. The unit will also take an in-depth look at how natural disasters have shaped our planet, and how these disasters are now predicted.
• Optional Unit 7: Electrifying!: This optional unit (if time allows) will cover the basics of electricity. Circuits and breadboards will be covered as the applications of electricity.
• Final Unit: The student/group chooses a STEAM-related project to finish out the semester. As long as the topic covers all of the letters in the acronym (but can be more lenient depending on the project or the student). At the end of the semester, the student/group presents their project.

I will write more on these topics and how they can be taught and modified for students as needed in my next post. All of these topics can and will be adapted to the student instead of the students needing to adapt to the material. The main way that this will be achieved will be through teachers aides and helpers in class or students who understand the topics well are encouraged to help their fellow students and are rewarded for doing so.

More to come soon,

-Chloe