CA Math & Science Challenge! • K-6 STEM Sequence If we want American math & science “athletes” to be stay competitive, we need to get every American child playing the game at a young age —giving them a lifelong Early Learning Advantage • “A good beginning ever ends… “
A Science and Information Technology Program modeled on the US Olympic Development Program.
Three steps to developing world-class math and science “athletes”:
Step 1: Get young children playing the “Game” of Math & Science–at a young age;
Step 2: Identify those with a true love for that game;
Step 3: Get them World-class Coaching in a Special Math & Science Learning Environment, an Active Learning Zone™.
Early Learning Advantage It is well established that giving children an early introduction to music, mathematics, athletic games, or foreign languages gives them a life-long head start over those who start later in life. Two questions arose when we considered early learning robotics:
Can we introduce children in grades K-2 and 3-8 to such complex activities as coding, applied mathematics, and engineering design in a way that ensures they are actuallylearning?
Can we find a way to get children to fall in love with these activities, to choose to work on them, through sheer joy of learning? Becoming so absorbed in coding, troubleshooting, and problem-solving that they lose track of time and have to be reminded to go home?
The “Power of Project Trees” The thing that allowed us to answer ‘yes’ to both questions, and to start a rigorous robotics-based Coding- Applied Math- Engineering Design curriculum at such a young age, was the Project Challenge-Tree (a visual goal-setting & progress-tracking tool). You can learn more about Project Tree’s revolutionary effect on the classroom— and about how to design your own Project Trees for any subject— at this link:
We just published our first Instructable (pretty cool platform), K-2 Robotics First Day, and applied for the Infy Maker Awards Grant: https://t.co/JVDsc9XyMX
TEACHERS NEED HELP to get more kids playing the game of math and science.
Teaching is tough! Especially teaching STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math). In fact a recent study identified significant obstacles elementary schools face when they try to create world class hands-on STEM programs.
To learn how you can help us train STEM Teachers, please visit my GoFundMe Campaign
What a year it’s been for us at CA Math & Science Challenge. Our mission to empower teachers with effective sTEm curriculum has begun in earnest with schools throughout San Diego County.
For instance, Ms. Bolling, the new head of the robotics program at Innovations Academy Charter: using a curriculum that included our Challenge Trees and Coaching/Assessment Checklists, Ms. Bolling helped every K-8 child experience some level of robotics programming at Innovations.
2nd Graders receive instruction for LOGO based Probot robots.
We have continued to support the wonderful teachers in our Hoover Cluster as they strengthen their own robotics Robotics programs.
What started out as an after school robotics programs is starting to work its way into the regular classroom schedule as teachers experience student growth in independent problem-solving skills, coding, mathematics, and engineering. The 3rd-5th grade students at this cluster had two opportunities to participate in weekend Challenge Event Tournaments:
Thank You to All Students, Teachers, and Parents for A Great Day at Hoover High Hoover Cluster: 10 Elementary Schools • 2 Middle Schools • 1 High School
Thank You Hoover High Robotics Club & Students for Hosting the “Challenge”
Special Thanks to the San Diego Rotary Club STEM Committee for their support!
This Saturday we introduced the K-2 Challenges using the Probot®robot for younger children:
Early Learning Advantage!™ ⇒ Programming • Problem-Solving • Applied Mathematics!
Hoover High School is hosting a Junior Botball® Challenge event on Sat, November 11, 2017 at the small gym. This event will be free and open to the public → DIRECTIONS
Students: drop by to “Take the Jr Botball Challenge” any time between 9 AM & 12 AM.
This event is open to all registered Junior Botball® Challenge teams.
Registered teams do not have to pay an additional fee to participate, but each school’s Botball coordinator must complete the sign-up form for this event (link below).
There are 6 Challenges at this event: Challenges 1, 2, 5, 9, 11, & Dance Party Challenge.
Challenges 1, 2, & 5 are for the beginner level, Challenges 9 & 11 will be for the intermediate level & the 6th challenge will be a mystery revealed onsite.
JBC Challenge 2: Ring Around the Can(beginning)- The robot will drive out and around the can in circle 6, and return to the starting area.
JBC Challenge 1: Tag You’re It (beginning)- The robot will drive to the can in circle 9, touch it, and return to the starting area.
JBC Challenge 5: Dance Party (beginning)-
Dance Party participants will receive a completion award when the robot “dances” to the music provided by the students and completes all of the performance standards:
A Science and Information Technology Program modeled on the US Olympic Development Program.
Three steps to developing world-class math and science “athletes”:
Step 1: Get young children playing the “Game” of Math & Science;
Step 2: Identify those with a true love for that game;
Step 3: Get them World-class Coaching as they prepare for Tournaments, Active Learning Design™ Contests, and Home Learning (Online Mastery) Challenges.
In this ⇒ Video Clip two students on the Arts & Sciences Academy Robotics Team solve the “Serpentine Challenge” in Saturday’s Junior Botball Robotics Tournament in San Diego.
The Arts & Sciences Academy Robotics Team of Dharma and Martina were the ONLY team to solve all 5 challenges in the tournament! (their code is below the “read more” tag) Arts & Sciences Academy student Max, arriving near the end of the morning also finished 4 out of 5 challenges before running out of time!
Since the weekend’s tournament the MISD robotics team students have moved on to the second level of Jr Botball: Learning about Sensors, Light Energy & the Electromagnetic Spectrum, Digital vs Analog inputs, and more…!
Jr Botball is a program designed to get American kids playing the “game” of Math & Science at an early age. 3rd graders and up learn to program in Objective C to “teach” their robots to solve a series of challenges that require them to understand coding, electronics, sensors, simple machines, and more:
If we want American math & science “athletes” to be stay competitive, we need to get every American child playing the game at a young age —giving them a lifelong Early Learning Advantage • “A good beginning ever ends… “
