Category: CA Math & Science Challenge!

“The World is Waiting” || STEM Poetry Motivation (Dr. Nehemiah Mabry)

“Is your organization striving to attract and retain more young people into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) areas? Are you aiming to increase the number of gender and ethnically diverse students who enter STEM educational programs and career fields?” — Dr. Mabry

With a message that resonates completely with the work that we do at CA Math & Science Challenge, Dr. Mabry provides insight into the answers in his powerful motivational video. Thank you for the work you’re doing to empower our future’s future.

"The World is Waiting" || STEM Poetry Motivation (Dr. Nehemiah Mabry)

“School Champion” • Jr Botball 2018-19 Kickoff • Thur, Oct 4th • Wilson Middle School

Students attending the SD Botball Regional Tournament!

“We will be kicking off the School Year with a meeting of the School Champions on Thursday, October 4, from 4:30 to 5:30pm at Wilson Middle School ( 3838 Orange Ave., San Diego, 92105)..  There will be familiar School Champions present, as well as some new Champions to meet, and it is always encouraging to have Rotary well represented at this initial meeting of the School Champions.

I view Rotary’s role as a facilitator for STEM projects, and some new projects will be presented to the Champions, as well as the popular Jr. Botball Robotics program.

Our Lead Coordinators this year will again be Phet Pease and Lily Vu Brown, and attached is Phet’s invitation to the School Champions and Principals to attend.”

Best of regards,
Doug Arbon
San Diego Rotary STEM Committee

Greetings Champions and Principals,

My name is Phet Pease and I teach STEM electives at Wilson Middle School. Over the past several years, Wilson has been working with the San Diego Rotary Club as part of their Rotary STEM Initiative, which makes a variety of STEM programs available to local schools. On behalf of the Hoover Cluster STEM leadership team, I would like to invite you to our STEM kick off meeting on Thursday, October 4th.

  • WHO: Hoover Cluster STEM Champions (or those who aspire to become one!)
  • WHERE: Wilson Middle School, 3838 Orange Ave, SD, CA 92105 in the library
  • WHEN: Thursday, October 4th from 4:30 – 5:30 PM
  • WHAT: Teaming up to provide more STEM opportunities for our students
  • WHY: To provide a Support Group for STEM champions across the Hoover Cluster

Light food and beverages will be provided! Each participating Hoover Cluster school that is represented at the meet up will receive a free gift for your site!

Please extend this invitation to other colleagues at your school site or anyone else who you think might be interested! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Phet Pease

ST Math Blog: Engagement Thrives When Students Own Their Learning

Excerpt: “Creating a Classroom Environment That Fosters Engagement…

As someone who has been designing visual goal setting and feedback systems for years, the  CA Math & Science Challenge! designer thought that “the unifying goal of always working to help JiJi the penguin cross the screen in ST Math, no matter what the math concept, was brilliant,” and that ST Math’s visual feedback system was first rate. “The students always have a sense of progress and momentum. That goes a long way toward explaining why ST Math is so successful across many different schools and districts.”

Although ST Math was a game-changer, he  knew that for the program to truly be effective, there is still a large role for administrators and teachers to play.

“Schools often need help with two areas. The first is figuring out how to embed ST Math into school culture and goal setting systems to increase student engagement in school and at home. The second is discovering how to motivate teachers to play and understand every ST Math topic, and each game’s math learning goals for the grade they teach. This prepares them to integrate ST Math into their math instruction and to apply the concepts that students are mastering to other subjects.”

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Want more diversity in STEM? • A Good Beginning Never Ends! • K-6 STEM Curriculum

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™.

• sTEm =  science Technology Engineering mathematics
• I.T. =  Information Technology

K-2 ROBOTICS • “The Power of Project Trees”

Students-Display-Completed-Projects.jpg

The Power of Project Trees

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 actually learning?
  • 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:

#EarlyEd, #GirlsCanCode, #CSForALL

GoFundMe: STEM Programs for Underserved Youth

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 for CA Math & Science Challenge!

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.

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:

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San Diego Jr Botball® 2017 Challenge • Hoover High

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:

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The California Math & Science CHALLENGE!

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.