Well done Applegrove Primary – STEM Establishment of the Month for September 2018!
What have they been up to at Applegrove PS?
World of Work & STEM
Every Thursday afternoon, P1-3 and P4-7 are arranged into mixed year groups to take part in activities based around the World of Work. Teachers offer activities and the pupils make their choices and are then arranged into groups. This gives pupils the opportunity to work in different groups with different teachers and to develop different skills linked to the world of work. This year for P4-7 the activities on offer are: Food Science, Engineering, Yoga & Mindfulness, Film, First Aid and Art & Design. P1-3 will start their WOW time in term 2 and their activities will be similar.
World of Food & Drink/Tourism
Using the Science on the Menu Kit, this group is carrying out investigations into our food. We began by looking at the equipment in the box such as pipettes, beakers and test tubes and what they’d be used for. We have also spoken about what different jobs are available in the Food Industry ranging from chefs to food taster to dieticians to quality control officers. We have carried out an investigation into fats in cheese and will be using Iodine to find out about starch in different foods. There’ll be some food tasting investigating how our sense of smell can affect our sense of taste as well as making our own ice cream!
World of Engineering
Before embarking on engineering challenges the Word of Engineering class spent some time learning about the engineering process and what makes an engineer. We also realised that failing is part of the process, but that we can still succeed if we evaluate and learn from our mistakes. With this in mind we went into groups and took on two newspaper challenges. The first was a competition to build the tallest free standing tower with only 2 sheets of newspaper and 30cm of tape. The second was to build a free standing tower that held a dictionary 15cm above the table for at least 3 seconds, using 10 sheets of newspaper and 14cm of tape. One tower managed to hold an impressive nine dictionaries.
World of information and film
With digital technology changing so rapidly, and dramatically, it’s a difficult task to be able to predict what job opportunities may arise in the future years. Who, for example, could have predicted a profession such as a blogger or vlogger? However these can be high earning and very influential careers. In the World of information and digital film we look at basic skills of recording digital images and editing these to create a various mixture of videos and photographs. We will look at editing, splicing and other media tools used in the digital industry and what jobs these can be linked to. As well as looking at what skills we could develop we will also be made aware of being Digital Responsible in line with being Responsible Citizens
Do you have a STEM story to share?
We have launched STEM establishment of the month for Early Years centres, Primary and Secondary schools to share some of their fantastic STEM learning with other establishments in Moray. If you would like to enter simply tell us (from a pupil perspective if possible) what you have done and send us some (GDPR compliant) pictures.
