LASD STEM UPDATES

There is just something magical that happens when you see your first LED light up or the motors buzzing around your doodle bot. Early on in our STEM program, students in 1st grade assemble the simplest circuit with an LED and coin battery to create mini flashlights which they use to project shadows in their science unit. Students learn about circuitry with a myriad of hands-on building activities, including designing their own series and parallel circuits using foam, Christmas lights, and foil. As students continue broadening their understanding, they transfer their knowledge to designing things that move with motors which include our Innovative Bots (4th Grade) and Kelbots (5th Grade). With a couple of motors, wires, batteries, and some basic tools like the wire stripper, these materials can inspire our students to because future electrical or mechanical engineers! (Image Credit: RAFT San Jose)

Pump it up, up, and away! We’re not talking about pump rockets – you know, the ones that travel a couple of yards. Think Mark Rober level – imagine a rocket traveling SUPER high and SUPER far! Students throughout the district were able to build their very own personalized paper air rocket to see how far it would travel. Students had time to make, test, and revise their build and launch from our very own official air rocket launcher.

This trimester has been all about bringing virtual code to life using physical, and external devices.

It was all about controlling code with physical devices made simply out of paper and conductive tape in fourth grade. Students developed programs, such as video games, using Scratch, integrated a “super-cool” device called a Makey Makey, and then created a controller out of paper. The Makey Makey uses the concepts of electrical circuits to make anything into a keyboard. Students not only took the coding algorithm into consideration but also developed a user-friendly game controller.

In fifth grade, students have been creating projects for a portable computer called microbit using either block or text-based coding. They wrote code that turned the microbit into a virtual pet that had to be cared for, a dice that changes value with each shake, and more. Fifth graders also got an intro to JavaScript. Using Khan Academy, they used JavaScript to draw shapes that then came together to form beautiful works of art. Curious about their creations? Have your child login and show you what they crafted out of code!

Sixth grade students have taken video game design and made it their own! With the support of Makecode Arcade, coders have been learning different coding concepts and putting them to use, developing engaging arcade games. It is important for our students to develop projects with a user in mind. They will be showcasing their games to both their 6th and 5th-grade peers in what is sure to be a fun gaming event. In addition to creating a video game, students also developed their artisitic and writing skills. Not only did they draw their own characters and worlds for their games, but they also created materials to entice people to dive into the worlds they created. They have also done a lot of work with science and math concepts such as velocity, acceleration, and coordinate planes. These 6th graders did it all!!

Students used JavaScript to make Maze Games as one of the projects in the Coding Apps, Games and More elective at Blach this semester. Each game had multiple levels of play for the user. Each student project was unique in the definition of a maze, moving/spinning/ collapsing walls, different types of player movements, interactions with the maze, obstacles that changed as the game became more difficult, and much more. Students showcased their creativity and ability to implement their ideas in code.

Living Classroom inspires students to learn and value the natural world through garden-based education. This spring, students have been busy planting microgreens, heirloom tomatoes, pollinator plants, and the traditional Native American Three Sisters Garden. They have also been enjoying harvesting onions, garlic, lettuce, and radishes to make salad, mint to make herbal tea, and wheat to make pretzels. Our youngest learners have been having fun exploring colors, textures, and scents in our school gardens and digging in the soil to discover the living world beneath their feet! Below are the Living Classroom lessons offered by grade level this spring which include two new fun lessons for fourth and fifth grade:

TK – Soil Explorers

Kindergarten – Garden Explorers

1st Grade – Garden Tea

2nd Grade – From Seed to Pretzel #2 & #3

3rd Grade – Flower Power & Three Sisters Garden Spring Planting

4th Grade – Super Structures

5th Grade – Energy to Go!

6th Grade – Magnificent Monarchs & Ancient Civilizations Spring Harvest

Living Classroom is fortunate to have parents and volunteers from the community who give of their time and talent to make this wonderful environmental education program possible. If you are interested in volunteering or learning more, please contact program Caroline Chan at livingclassroom@lasdschools.org or (650) 947-1103.

We’ve expanded our painting lessons this year to not only include watercolor but now have lessons in acrylic and tempera paint too!

Art is like many other subjects in that many people do not think that they are very good at it when they first try it. It is a subject that you need to learn some basics and practice in order to improve, just like math, music, etc.

In our painting lessons, some of the things we teach students are:

• how to take care of the tools

• basic color theory of mixing primary, secondary, and tertiary colors as well as warm and cool colors

• composition with foreground, middle ground, and background

• scale and proportion

• techniques such as wet-on-wet, graded wash, dry brush, resist, several kinds of strokes

Creativity and individuality are encouraged within the scope of each lesson.

All of these build year to year in our 11 painting lessons across all grade levels.

If you wish your child had more free art time, we would encourage you to allow them to use what they have learned in school to apply it freely at home and practice, practice, practice to encourage confidence, imagination, and ability.

Thanks to funding from LAEF, every LASD student experiences STEM education and has the opportunity to learn to code through the computer science program. A huge thanks to our community for its contributions to LAEF. If you have not had the chance to donate this year, please consider a contribution of any amount: https://laefonline.org/District/1110-Untitled.html