Grant funds new tech kits at Cooper
Teacher Stefanie Pick had the opportunity to go on a very special shopping trip, and every student at Cooper Elementary School will benefit.
Pick teaches the ESTEAM class at Cooper. Like the library class and art class, ESTEAM is one of the “specials” that every student attends on a rotating schedule.
It started out as STEM which stands for science, technology, engineering and math but, at Cooper, economics and art were added to the mix. Every student in all five grades — kindergarten through fourth — is in ESTEAM for one hour every six days.
Lessons in technology and engineering require some special materials. Pick started out with Lego kits that make simple machines like winches. But then Cooper principal Chad Mims suggested she apply for a grant from the Bentonville Education Foundation. She was approved and received $10,000 for classroom materials.
Pick knew about Makey Makey kits because her daughter used one in middle school, so she went online to shop. Makey Makey kits use clips and USB computer ports to make any object into a computer keyboard. Students can connect any item — a banana, a headband, a lunch box — and turn them into a set of bongos or a piano. Someday Pick may turn the staircase at the front of the school into a keyboard so students can make music as they run up and down the stairs. But, she said, she hasn’t had a chance to experiment yet.
As she was shopping for the Makey Makey kits, the internet did what the internet often does and started offering her suggestions on similar products. That was how she found Squishy Circuits. Squishy Circuit kits come with a play-dough-like substance that conducts electricity so kids can mold a fish or a skyscraper out of the colorful dough and then add lights or even a propeller to their creations.
Squishy dough projects use art, science, technology and engineering. Math, she said, is always involved with her projects, and economics can be discussed as the students invent new uses for the technology.
Another classroom set of Snap Circuits is on its way, Pick said.
Although the new kits use electricity, it’s a low voltage that keeps the kids safe from shocks, she said.
Her younger students may not use the kits, she said, but they’ll see what the older students do. All ages are looking forward to experimenting in ESTEAM class.