Thursday 16 March 2017

Week 7: STEM Challenges


This week our teachers introduced STEM challenges. STEM stands for Science, Technology, English and Maths.

We had two challenges that involved us working in teams. For some of us this was very difficult during the first challenge, but after reflecting on different ways to problem solve we found team work a lot easier during the second challenge.

Here are some questions we have for you.

  1. If you have done a STEM challenge before what challenges did you come across?
  2. How did you overcome those challenges?
Thank you for reading
From the STEM-tastic learners in Pohatu class


6 comments:

  1. Kia ora Pohatu class,
    I am wondering if you can tell me a bit more about your STEM challenges. I am thinking from your photos that the first challenge was to create a structure to hold up a ball (or was it a balloon?), what did you need to do with the straws? I have never had a actual STEM challenge before but a couple of weeks ago I was down at Hanmer Springs for a work conference and one of the team challenges we had was to stack 3 golf balls! It was very hard and our team tried so many different things but it didn't work for us in the time we had. Some teams managed to make it happen though. There is a video clip here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhJ90uSkKYo - I wonder if you can do it?
    Tania

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Tania. Thank you for commenting on our blog. Those are some good questions. Our first challenge was to build a structure using newspaper and sellotape that could support a basketball for 20 seconds. With the straws we had to build the tallest straw tower. We were only allowed to use fifteen straws and blue tack. Although Miss Huys threw a curve ball and let us trade some of our blue tack for more straws. We showed Miss Fortes the video and she said she is going to let us try it. We will let you know when we do the golf ball challenge and share it on our blogs too. Bye Tania. From Pohatu Class.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, I like this because I like how you put what STEM stands for. Was it hard or easy? Well done.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kareen I'm from Hay Park School. Thank for commenting on Pohatu classes blog. It was so hard because we had to use a ton of paper and tape. It was hard because the ball was on top.

      From Ashtyn

      Delete
  4. Hello Kareem I'm Kartia I'm from hay park school thank you for commenting on pohatu classes blog. Yes the stem challenge was hard and fun I liked the one when we did the stem with straws and blue tack. That was my favourite stem challenge.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi there im Dani I like your stem challenge. just add cooler things. Bye

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your positive, thoughtful and helpful comment.