Kids are naturally curious. They like to explore, test and play. It is through these types of activities that lots of learning takes place. Tinkerlabs are a great place for students to start exploring and inventing.  If you have never heard of a Tinkerlab, it is simply an idea where students learn by taking apart old technology to figure out how it works as well as how it can be re-purposed in other ways through exploring and testing new ideas. It is all about creating hands-on experiences where failure is acceptable and expected!

Tammy Anderson's and Cathy Christiansen's kindergartners at Butcher-Greene received old keyboards, laptops and other technology devices from IT to take apart in their Science center. Yes, students were given hammers, screwdrivers and wedges to explore these items.  A little lesson on how to use the screwdriver was all students needed and they were off tinkering! Students were very determined to tear into these devices and you could hear squeals of delight when they made discoveries of what was inside! 

Students will take the extra parts and see if they can build something with them as the next step. This is a great example of letting students explore and be creative with technology in a whole new way! Way to go, kindergartners!

Diane DeLaTorre

Are you looking for a way that your students can jazz up their Science Fair boards? Well, middle school teachers have come up with a fabulous solution by going digital! Every year middle school students throughout the district are required to complete a Science Fair project as part of their final grade in Science. It is a big undertaking that requires students to spend hours outside of class developing ideas and putting everything together in order to show their understanding of the Scientific Method. Students must develop a hypothesis, gather materials, perform an experiment that will test their hypothesis, gather data and explain their results.

This year, instead of requiring the majority of students to create a board that may or may not go on to the citywide competition at Union Station, students have been given a choice to create a digital version of their typical Science Fair board.  Not only does this eliminate the need to purchase and bring in a board, it also allows the projects to be enhanced with photos and even video of the experiment conducted!

Students are using a template that was created in Google Slides (you can check it out below!). Google Classroom makes it extremely easy to distribute a copy of the template to each student so they can begin work right away. As an added bonus, Google Classroom allows the teachers to periodically check on a student’s Slides project simply by logging in to the class.  
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Projects are due in January and we are anxious to see how students respond to the opportunity to use technology to complete them!  No longer do your students need to be "board" with their science fair projects!