St Johns – Page 7 – St. John's National School

Scott here. Well, I was supposed to be leading engineering activities at the school a few weeks ago, but…do I need to finish the sentence? I think not😊.

Necessity is the means of invention, so I came up with a school wide engineering project that can be done online.

Here is the breakdown:

Each week the students are given a challenge.
Embedded in each challenge is one of the following questions:

- How far can you make it go?
- How high can you build it?
- How much weight can it hold?

As you can see, each student will go as far as he/she can; there is no end point.

Parents will send results via email. They will also send a picture of what each child designed.
From week 2 on, students will get a link to a new “challenge video” and a link to a “results video” showing what their fellow students accomplished the previous week.

Here is the K-PEP introduction video link: https://youtu.be/WIty6l1K2ew

(You’ll soon see what K-PEP means.)

Today, I had an email exchange with a principal at another school. I thought it would be helpful to include the exchange as she asked questions you might have.

What classes are these lessons aimed at is it from junior infants through to 6th class?

Yes, it is for the entire school. Each challenge is designed so that all students can do them. The question is this: how far can each student get with each challenge? For example, in the first lesson the students will make a series of tunnels the marble has to go through. The level of difficulty increases with each tunnel. Generally speaking, the older students will be able to make it through more tunnels than the younger students. We’ll see. Results will be emailed to me, along with pictures, and I’ll do a results video to let students and parents know what happened with each class.

Do we just put a link up on the website for parents to access the lessons?

Yes. I’m creating a youtube channel for each school. The link is unlisted–meaning, you can open it if you have it, but the general public can’t find it.

When would the lessons begin?

I’d like to start next week as we are half way through June. It doesn’t matter which day we start, but we do want to be consistent with the day the new challenge is uploaded and the deadline. For example, we could start Monday and have a Friday deadline, or we could start Tuesday and have a Saturday deadline.

I’ve attached a picture of something a Dublin student designed in the 5th week of the project. A marble has to roll down a ramp and eventually make it to the end of a loo roll.

If you have any questions, please email me or contact me at 087-250-6785. Also, I’m on WhatsApp.

Take care,
Scott

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