Schools

Concord Teachers Get STEAM-y with a 300-lb Ice Cube

Exploring ice and protecting potato chips -- for 15 Concord elementary school teachers, it was all in the name if professional development.

School’s still out for the summer, but that doesn’t mean local educators aren’t thinking about teaching and learning.

This week, 15 teachers, specialists and instructors from Concord’s elementary schools spent time at the Science Discovery Museum in Acton for summer professional development around teaching elementary school science.

With tops, ice balloons, potato chips and a 300-pound block of ice, the teachers explored and discussed and collaborated as a professional learning community (PLC) around the topic of STEAM – which is science, technology, engineering, art and math. 

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WATCH: Check out the video above to see professional development in action.

Participants in the week’s professional development included K-5 classroom teachers, two art teachers and media specialists from Concord’s elementary schools, according to Susan Erikson, a fifth-grade teacher at Thoreau School who spearheaded the program.

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“There’s not a lot of good professional development around science, and teachers tend to go to more scripted lessons,” said Erikson. “We wanted the teachers to be students, to ask questions and explore and work together.”

The STEAM initiative is funded through a grant from the Concord Ed Fund, and the idea is to take areas within the current science curriculum and “STEAM it” by infusing it with technology, engineering and math.

On Monday, for example, the group started the week looking at different ways to do hands-on learning – using worksheets, challenges and open explanation related to tops. Tuesday, the teachers experimented with ice balloons and attempted to design and create packages that would protect a single potato chip sent through the mail.

And then on Wednesday, the morning began with a chance to explore a 300-pound block if ice. After the teachers played around with pennies, food coloring, salt and rock salt to see how they interacted with the ice, the group moved inside to check on their potato chips and discuss design and engineering.

Inside with members of the Science Museum staff, the teachers brainstormed about assessments, and ways they might incorporate STEAM ideas within their existing curriculums.

During a short break, Johanna Ellis, a Kindergarten teacher at Thoreau, said the professional development was about working on ways to enhance the existing curriculum in more of a STEAM format.

“It’s pretty much a natural fit for Kindergarten,” she said, noting that some interdisciplinary learning is already going on. “We do it, but we don’t always articulate it.”

After two-and-a-half days at the Discovery Museums, the program shifted to the Ripley Building where the teachers took pieces of existing curriculum and STEAM’d it.

“They’ll be taking these ideas that they have learned and applying it for their kids,” said Erikson. 


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