Tag: STEAM

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Gr. 1s Engineer New Solutions to Our Favorite Fairytales

This winter, Grade 1 students were engaged in an integrated Literacy and STEAM unit on fairytales. Students were challenged to use their design and engineering skills to solve problems for characters in their favourite fairytales such as the Three Little Pigs, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Goldilocks.

We watched a clip from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and asked the students why in traditional fairytales, princesses are always saved by a prince. Then we had a discussion about what makes a princess today and the girls came up with their own criteria including strong, smart, creative, and kind. Then we asked: What would a princess do today if she were locked in a tower? Wait around for a prince to save her or use her engineering and design skills to save herself?

As our final challenge, students were asked to find another way for Rapunzel to get out of the tower without waiting around for a prince to rescue her!   

Students brainstormed different ways that Rapunzel could get out of the tower and came up with a long list, including parachutes, airplanes, chairlifts, elevators, water slides, and more! Then students worked with their group to determine one design to create together! Using their new iterative design skills, students tested and modified their designs as they went. They thought about how to keep Rapunzel safe and how to incorporate some of the engineering knowledge we had learned from the previous challenges including simple machines and cardboard engineering!

Jennifer Sharpe
STEAM Coordinator, Junior School

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SK Designs Prosthetics for Animals

This spring the York House SK Apple class engaged in a project on Animal Prosthetics. The students had been very interested in how animals help people and how people help animals. They had a veterinarian clinic play centre set up in the classroom and would often read books about animals. To extend on this interest, students were shown a video from Engineering is Everywhere about animal prosthetics. Right away the students were engaged as they were given the challenge to help a hurt frog by designing a frog leg.

For their larger project, students were divided into groups to design a prosthetic for a specific animal such as a horse, dolphin, or eagle. Students used the Design Thinking Framework to help empathize and understand what their animal needed their prosthetic to help them do. They read stories about their animal, watched videos, and even pretended to move like the animal.  

Students brainstormed or ideated multiple ways to make their prosthetic and then experimented with materials. To test their designs, students had to think about its comfort, durability, attachment, and function. After testing, groups modified and improved on their prosthetics. It was wonderful to see how students persevered when they encouraged design flaws and continued to modify their designs until they were satisfied with how it worked.

This project was a collaboration between SK teachers, Kimberly Ryerson and Alison Matthews, and STEAM Coordinator Jennifer Sharpe.