STEM SCHOOL

This lesson uses a website to see interactive gears and learn how to calculate the gear ratio using the number of teeth on the driver gear and follower gear. The also learn about a gear train; specifically a gear up train and gear down train and when each might be useful. Students will use gear manipulatives to actually visualize they way gears provide mechanical advantage and change the direction of the force. This product includes just the interactive journal template and lesson outline.

This product is the lesson, standards met, and materials needed to introduce students to the wedge, a simple machine. Included in this is the template for students to add to their interactive journal.

Answer Key for the Pretest that assesses Lessons on Growth Mindset, Collaboration, The Engineering Design Process, and units on Simple Machines and Comparative Anatomy.

This is a lesson I teach at the beginning of the year to help my students understand what working together effectively looks like! I analyzed effective groups and came up with 6 characteristics of those groups that made them work. This lesson is interactive and includes class discussion and group work.

This product includes the lesson for introducing what pulleys are, and how they work as a simple machine. It includes the journal template for students to add to their interactive journal, and visual aids for learning the formulas and vocabulary for the lesson.

This lesson uses the data collected from the ASPIRE Simple and Complex Machines website (in the Intro to Pulleys Part 1 lesson) and includes an activity that requires the students to practice analyzing the data represented on three graphs. Students will focus on how to answer questions and learn information by a studying a visual representation of data.

This product is a Pulley lab sheet to accompany a lab where students work in pairs to practice calculating the mechanical advantage of a pulley, and then have the opportunity to build a pulley of their own. The lab requires access to pulleys and rope or cord, as well as heavy objects to lift with them.

This lesson is an introduction to the Engineering Design Process using a story and building bricks to put it into practice. It includes the lesson plan and the journal template for students to add to their interactive STEM notebook.

I give this pretest at the very beginning of the year as a way to show student growth. It assesses lessons in Growth Mindset, Collaboration, and The Engineering Design Process, as well as units on Simple Machines and Comparative Anatomy. I administer the same test again after teaching all of the lessons and units to determine how much my students learned and reflect on my teaching. Key is a separate document.

I begin the year with this important lesson to help my students understand the concept of Growth Mindset! You can always get better, in fact, someday you may be an expert in those things that are currently a weakness!