STEM: October 2024
STEM: October 2024
As October comes to a close, it's a perfect time to reflect on the exciting STEM lessons and activities that have taken place this month. Our dedicated faculty and enthusiastic students have engaged in a variety of projects and experiments, showcasing their creativity and curiosity. From innovative problem-solving to hands-on learning experiences, October has been filled with opportunities to explore the fascinating world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
- Lower School: Mole Day
- Middle School: 8th Grade Trebuchet
- Upper School:
AP Biology Phagocytosis and Vacuole Formation
In AP Bio, students explored the concept of phagocytosis, essentially the process of “cell eating”. Students investigated this concept by using Tetrahymena, a single-cell protist often used as a model organism for drug research, and studying how it ingests food.
To accomplish this, students needed to carefully prepare their samples by using just enough alcohol to slow the cell movement so it would be more easily viewable through the microscope, but not so much as to kill off the cells, which is a delicate balance that took some groups a few attempts.
Each group prepared three samples to see how the sample's temperature impacted the rate of vacuole formation, in other words, how fast they ate. Through this process, students needed to juggle the timing for different temperatures–would the ice bath sample heat up faster than the warmed sample would cool?--, while also tackling the daunting task of identifying the tiny cells in the microscope.
Accomplishing this task required smooth teamwork and communication within each group as the microscope can only be used by one person at a time. While watching cells eat is certainly cool, the phenomenon in this lab is similar to how immune cells ingest and destroy invading bacteria, so students were able to visualize this very important function of the body.
Lower School Mole Day
Mole Day is celebrated on October 23rd in honor of Avogadro’s Number 6.02 x 1023. The Upper School chemistry club visited Lower School classes on Mole Day to do some demonstrations to celebrate! The students did a “reaction in a bag” where they combined baking soda, calcium chloride, phenol red, and water to demonstrate the three chemical reaction outcomes: color change, temperature change, and gas production. Lower school students were able to watch the bubbles from the reaction and were fascinated by feeling the bag warm up as the reaction proceeded.
8th Grade Trebuchet
In 8th-grade Creative Tech Majors, students were tasked with designing and building a projectile launcher that would accurately launch a paper ball into a bin at a set distance. Students needed to think about how to design a reliable mechanism for their launcher that would operate as expected each time and not degrade after use.
In the 8th grade Creative Tech Minors, students have been learning the basics of vector and 3D design through the medium of vinyl stickers and 3D printed objects.
Chemistry Mixture Separation
In Chemistry, students learned about the concept of a mixture, the combination of multiple substances, and how challenging it can be to cleanly separate them back into their components. Students were given a mixture of salt, sand, and limestone in unknown quantities and were tasked with the challenge of figuring out the percentages of each component in their original mixture.
Students needed to be careful while following their procedure to remove each component without impacting the others. For example, adding water would dissolve the salt in the mixture but would not impact the sand or limestone. Students learned how to safely use equipment like the Bunsen burner to help them slowly evaporate their liquid.
In this lab, students also were introduced to the concept of scientific error. At each step, they needed to consider all of the different ways they may be introducing error into their system, so that if their final result did not match their original starting mixture composition, they could justify the difference.
Macqueen Robot Obstacle Course
In Robotics, students demonstrated their understanding of the fundamentals of robotics by building an obstacle course that their robot needed to clear. Their course needed to include a curved path for the robot to follow, obstacles to help the robot know where it was on the course, and objects with which the robot could interact. Students let their ambition and creativity flow when designing the obstacle course by making tunnels, helicopter pads, and even the Eiffel Tower.
Students needed to design their robot to accomplish this task by using components like ultrasonic distance sensors and servos. During the process, students learned the importance of troubleshooting and iterative design as, rarely, did the robot operate exactly as they envisioned. Sometimes, this was from an error in their code, but, other times, this was from a default in their robot. Each robot is slightly different. Some may have areas more worn than others, so students learned that they needed to compensate for these defects with their design. At the end of the project, the students were able to watch as their peers’ robots cleared their courses successfully.
