Illinois State professor gives STEM lesson to St. James students

Arlington Heights, IL. December 1, 2011 — On Monday, November 28, Dr. Brad Christensen, a professor at Illinois State University, visited Mrs. Nancy Gottung's eighth grade science classes at St. James School to teach the students a STEM lesson. St. James is implementing a STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) curriculum called IMaST (Integrating Math and Science Technology) for the first time this year. Dr. Christensen is one of the authors of this new curriculum.

During the lab, students used mousetrap cars to learn about the principles of kinetic and potential energy. They also used the cars to gather and record data, recognize patterns in the data and analyze it. As Dr. Christensen pointed out during the lesson, "You won't need to know how a mousetrap car works to get into college. But you will be expected to know how to collect data and analyze it." Students worked in small groups to measure several different variables – the pull of the arm on the mousetrap, the size of the wheels on the car, and the size of the hub on the car. They changed one variable at a time to determine the impact on the speed of the car. The lab was extremely interactive, with students working together to actually "do" the science activities – hypothesizing, measuring, recording, observing, and making conclusions.

This kind of active learning is what the STEM curriculum is all about. It is a curriculum based on the idea that students learn best when encouraged to construct their own knowledge of the world around them, rather than just look for an answer in a book. STEM is more of an ongoing process that strives to truly engage students in their learning.

SJS eighth grade students were extremely fortunate to have Dr. Christensen, an expert in this new curriculum, visit their class and lead them in a lesson.