Wind and Weather a STEM based unit : Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

The goal of  a STEM unit is to help all students become innovators and inventors, self-reliant and logical thinkers and technologically proficient problem solvers. 

Beginning our unit on Wind, Weather and Engineering we explored two questions:

What is an engineer?

and

What is technology?

There were a broad range of answers and initially  the children thought an engineer fixed things like cars and pipes in your house or created machines.They felt technology involved electronics, electricity and computers. 

I told the children each partner pair would be given a mystery bag with an item of technology inside
that I had gathered from my house. They had to talk with their partner and decide if their item of technology was natural or man made, what was it was made of and it's uses.

Technology:Pen

Plastic Food Container

Eraser

Scissors

Paper Clips

Hair Brush

After the activity we revisited our answers to the questions; "What is an engineer and what is technology?"
The class came to the conclusion that technology is anything made by a person that solves a problem and an engineer is someone who uses math and science and creativity to design an item that helps us do things faster or more easily and solves a problem.

We will be moving on to some design challenges that involve wind that are hands on and focus on the engineering process. They use simple materials and allow for multiple solutions.

Thank you to the families that have been sending in supplies for our design challenges.

Materials we still need for our project:

3" styrofoam balls
styrofoam trays
14  quarter inch dowel roads
Gabled wax covered cardboard juice containers/ half gallon