Sunday 10 a.m.–1 p.m. in Expo Hall
Recipe to deliver a “project based learning” STEM experience to High School students
Meenal Pant, Aarav Pant, Anay Pant
Description
Being a STEM educator for middle and high school , I am constantly looking to create a curriculum and content that makes learning to program a fun and hands on activity for students. Students in this age group typically lose interest or find it difficult when following a traditional form of learning e.g. following a book or screencast.
In summer 2018, I got an opportunity via [https://www.fremontstem.org/ ][1]to run a research oriented 16 hours ( 2 hours per week) “learning with Python workshop” with high school students.
This is when I set out to create a project that my team would work on , and gain programming skills while doing so. In PyCon 2018 Adafruit gave Gemma M0 microcontrollers as swag to each attendee. I found myself enjoying tinkering with it using Python with a few relatively easy steps. This tinkering propelled me into thinking of and creating a simple and easy to follow project that the students would enjoy and also be able to complete in the given timeframe.
My idea , with some help from [Les Pounder's][2] blog post, was to create blingy and shiny Christmas ornaments with Gemma M0 and Neopixel rings from Adafruit, Python and 3D printing! Creating and executing this project took a “village and two tiny helpers” to make happen!
This poster talks about the process , the sighs and frustrations, the aha moments and the final feeling of achieving success as a team working on and delivering a fun filled collaborative, “hands on” project.
Some topics covered in the poster session will be:
- Concept and Idea
- Electronics with Python
- Hands on with wire strippers and soldering iron
- Design and printing moulds
- Student showcase
- Student feedback
[1]: https://www.fremontstem.org/
[2]: https://bigl.es/
[3]: https://www.fremontstem.org/blog/categories/asdrp