MILTON — Making functioning tiny robots and human-powered game controllers was a project goal this week in one S.S. Dixon Intermediate classroom.
Meanwhile, students in the music room watched a science demonstration using liquid nitrogen.
These activities were part of the school’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math workshop on Tuesday, when parents glimpsed next-level lessons becoming widespread in Santa Rosa County schools.
PLAY-DOH LESSONS
In Kimberly Showalter’s classroom, parents and children worked on making a robot from a toothbrush head, battery, wires and other parts; making a video game controller from Play-Doh, a circuit board, wires, and human electricity; and making and testing a windmill in a digital simulation.
Helping her son, Blake, to make the “brush bot,” Roberta Panepinto said, “His generation watches how-to-do videos on YouTube.” She said her husband and Blake already pick a project on a weekly basis to work on together.
While students watched a science demonstration about liquid nitrogen in the school’s music room, parents learned statistics and information from a presentation by Discovery Education instructional specialist Cynthia Evans.
COMPETITION AND OPPORTUNITY
While STEAM lessons may be technological, hands-on activities, Evans said the lessons’ methods include critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity, with learning coming through multiple disciplines at once.
Showing the competitive necessity of increasing STEAM interest in children, Evans said in 2014 1 percent of U.S. college graduates earned degrees in science, compared to 38 percent in South Korea, 47 percent in France, 50 percent in China, and 67 percent in Singapore.
Florida’s science and technology fields will have an estimated 411,000 jobs by 2018, Evans said, adding that some of these jobs will only require a two-year degree and bring home significant pay.
For example, she said, a surgical technician — responsible for laying out and counting medical instruments, among other critical duties — could earn $70,000.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Parents, children make robots at SS Dixon Intermediate (PHOTOS)