Students chose a favorite book in the EMS library and explored how to promote that book to their classmates using persuasive, concise, language, vivid images, and music.  The result was book trailer videos that hook interest and leave the viewer wanting to know more.  Students linked their videos to a QR code and made them accessible to places students gather before school and after school so they could use their phones to view the videos.  The library has the books ready for check out!

Click to Watch:
Miss Perigrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Coraline
Delerium
The Witch's Eye
​Matched

Not much time was left in the end of the year after our trip to Lubbock.  Some students answered a design challenge and some created book trailers.  The design challenge involved creating a "ship" that could traverse the width of the swimming pool, propelled by its own power, and make it to the other side with the greatest weight carried.  Students had fun testing their designs and collecting all of the weights that fell off in the pool. Have a great summer!

EMS GT students started getting to know their robots.  They built a basic design using their Lego EV3 kits and began learning how to program the robots to accomplish various tasks.  One of their first challenges...Parking Lot.  Teams had to program their robots to park "legally" in certain parking spaces in a parking lot.  There were several pedestrians to navigate and plan around. Students will be competing in the Texas Tech University STEM Academy G.E.A.R. Robotics Challenge in April.

Finally after 4 weeks of research, design, test trials, and re-design, EMS students presented their design and test results to NASA in a video conference. Students used presentation skills and responded to detailed questions about their process and findings.  Great job to all teams.

Students are hard at work researching and designing their shoe box gliders. They are on a tight timeline and should start test flights next week.  

EMS GT students kicked off a new project Monday after receiving a challenge from Johnson Space Center.  Students were asked to design a way to make a shoe box fly...or at least glide.  Using any shoe box as the fuselage, students will design a glider using their knowledge of how the forces of flight interact to generate lift.  Test flights will determine the glide slope ratio and students will have an opportunity to modify their design based on their results.  Once they have maximized their design for longest sustained flight, they will prepare a presentation to deliver to the NASA representative describing how and why they chose their design, their findings through the test flight process, modifications they made, and data collected. Students report back to NASA on November 23.

In preparation for a video conference interaction with NASA's Johnson Space Center, students reviewed the forces of flight and directions of flight with the movement of different control surfaces.  After researching how an aircraft stays aloft, teams created an Educreations  with their explanation of these forces...

Click to watch student videos:

Logan, Aiden, Banjamin
Austin, Marshall
Mario, Tanner
Jonathan McGee
Seth Parker

Students in 7th and 8th Grade GT classes started the year with an engineering challenge.  Their task was to create a geodesic dome out of toothpicks and jelly beans that would withhold the maximum amount of weight.  The challenge started with one encyclopedia and was won by a team that developed a dome that held from A-JK World Book editions.  In the process students evaluated how their thinking progressed and saw how closely their process aligned to the Engineering Design Process that will use throughout the year to structure several projects.