Elmhurst's Edison School celebrates Maker/STEM event
Elmhurst's Edison Elementary School MakerSpace, named Edison Studio, recently held its inaugural all-school Maker/STEM event focusing on building, engineering, coding, collaboration, problem solving and creativity.
Regular classroom schedules were paused for the afternoon so all students could engage in activities around the school.
With the support of the Elmhurst Unit District 205 Foundation, the Elmhurst Public Library and the Edison PTA, Edison Studio crafted a variety of activities to help students participate in future-ready learning.
Among them:
• Kindergartners got their hands on Magna-Tiles to make flowers, bridges and trains. They also participated in an "unplugged" coding activity using Code Hopper mats.
• The art room became a construction zone when first-graders designed and built rain shelters for Elephant and Piggie (stars of a popular book series) with Popsicle sticks, cardboard, laminate and other materials. They also wrote some code with Scratch Jr.
• In the music room, second-graders made community structures and infrastructure elements for "Glow Communities" out of cardboard, plastic bottles and card stock and then lit them up with Glow Sticks. They also designed Keva plank trails and coded Bee-Bot robots to follow all the twists and turns.
• In the multipurpose room, third-graders built and raced "junk boats" out of recyclable items such as cardboard, plastic tubs, straws, pipe cleaners, plastic and duct tape. They also built and coded Lego WeDo devices, courtesy of Lori Hoegler and Shaira Rock from the Elmhurst Public Library.
• Fourth-graders coded Ozobot robots to take tours across the USA to visit national parks or state capitals. They also engineered ways to make a Matchbox car move without touching it using balloons, string, straws and other materials not normally used by auto engineers.
• Fifth-graders learned about castles and then put their learning into action by building castles with working drawbridges, flags and a keep. They also engineered a two-finger grabber device from only a small bagful of items such as rubber bands, Popsicle sticks, a fork and a spoon.