3521 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Betsy Stefany
  2. http://www.sabensgrp.com
  3. Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. SABENS Group
  1. Michael Kaspar
  2. Senior Policy Analyst
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  1. Tina Bishop
  2. Education Evaluation and Research Specialist
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  1. Marilyn Moriarty
  2. Professor
  3. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  1. Theresa Overall
  2. https://www.umf.maine.edu/about/faculty-staff/theresa-overall/
  3. Associate Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. University of Maine Farmington

STEM Literacy Community of Practice

NNX16AB95A

2020 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades K-6, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Undergraduate, Graduate, Adult learners, Informal / multi-age

The video follows annual seasonal integration activities introducing sensor and data collection initially developed as Math and Science Partnership projects.  These STEM classroom projects merged with the NASA/AREN remote sensing goals extending the application beyond the classroom. The ongoing data collection unites multiple learning designs, individual interests through family, clubs and field classroom practice with STEM. The video view builds from first ground level exploration to digital tools with an goal to fly the NASA Aeropod at comparison sites, creating a positive practice from varied points of view and different perspectives, meeting users “where viewers are” on technology and engineering understanding while encouraging  local narratives.  The views build from formal study innovations (intern, club, course) into  recreational application, increasing levels of data capture.  Interest expands past STEM PD ( Bell, Gitomer, Savage, McKenna, 2019) learning from broader public exposure.    The NASA Aeropod tool structures learning progressions with sensors’ use, sustaining confidence through shared experiences.  Past MSP participants in the video explore educator’s positive STEM “learning affinity” (Noonan, 2018) obtained through US Green Building Council’s mini certification and with newly enrolled candidates.    Data collection narratives involve broad age levels and geographic range. 

The common experience of NASA’s history of achievements and public outreach serves as a unique point of reference.  Developing online discussion during current activities links to their exploration, building  ties to local narratives enabled through shared history   Remote sensing increases meaning by different views in data, visuals and narrative, building STEM literacy. 

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Discussion from the 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase (23 posts)
  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 4, 2020 | 08:02 p.m.

    Welcome!  The video obviously carries forward the 50th year celebration of the Moon Landing last July while also updating the activities of STEM Literacy Community of Practice focusing on the use of the NASA Aeropod. The project also celebrated a tenth anniversary last summer as the Community of Practice began as a Math and Science Partnership innovation designed to unite teachers to explore emerging digital tools through the new STEM concept lens.   The Community of Practice structure released educators from the formal project expectations,  involving set outcomes, timed milestones and set content. The  goals began as a focus on emerging online content and continues to demo the use of  data to direct relevant projects.  This is  the 5th year  of submitting  a video so check out our past videos as they truly carry the flow of moving from teacher focus into student interests.  We continually gain from the questions, suggestions, and further project discussions during STEM-for-All and are especially eager to share during this uncommon time of digital immersion. 

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Michael Kaspar

    Michael Kaspar

    Co-Presenter
    Senior Policy Analyst
    May 4, 2020 | 09:29 p.m.

    When you watch the video, what do you think about the use of the NASA Aeropod in engaging students? Where would you start? Would you be comfortable using this fantastic tool (just think where its been!)?  How could you use the tool?  If uncertain, what would you need to know about using this digital tool to move beyond your comfort zone so as to move 'from teacher focus into student interests.' 

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 5, 2020 | 02:59 p.m.

    Hi, Mike

    Thanks for posting fine questions for our viewers to ponder!  The video elements toss viewers into the prep session from muli-years of data collection of light/temp sensors. It will be interesting to hear from others introducing remote sensing from the sky view through photography.  

    The Aeropod under kite power with a full range of tools was expected to be videoed  by early April however the wind in early March…and later the virus shutdown … limited us based on the view of the capability of the tools.  The students' engagement and decision making from low level conditions was evident in the early video.  The effort to attempt a flight after school with data anchored their decision. 

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Bob Riddle

    Bob Riddle

    Column Editor
    May 5, 2020 | 09:49 a.m.

    Now I know what the Aeropods are and I have a better understanding of what you were describing Betty! 
    What I like is the student-centered approach of letting the students do it their way, with some external guidance if needed. Even if the the goal or the process is not fully understood this way of teaching/learning allows the student to grasp the idea by doing getting involved.
    I was always worried about what I called the peripheral kids. But often they would gain interest and become involved because of the other students doing the activity. 

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 5, 2020 | 03:14 p.m.

    Glad to see the first flyer of the data loggers arrive to meet the Aeropod!  Your collaboration and abilities to launch the varied technology, sensors and map their ride with a weather balloon inspired us!  Also thanks for noticing that the students fairly took over this year to produce a video.  They learned of the Ascent project in KS, discussed the tools positioning on a NASA tool designed to be level and were highly excited to build the albedo into the visual capacity.  Their patience and engagement is a direct result of your earlier adventures. 

    They watched their own early efforts with a single Aeropod testing the around the one corner of the building,  assigned the same roles (map/reporter), researchers and film teams and took off (nearly! ) with two teams circling the building.  Their video will be passed on with this year’s data as their school continues to improve conditions and lower energy costs based on data-evidence.

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Tina Bishop

    Tina Bishop

    Co-Presenter
    Education Evaluation and Research Specialist
    May 5, 2020 | 10:01 a.m.

    Hello everyone! 

    Happy to be joining Betsy and the SABENS team to highlight this engaging project.

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 5, 2020 | 03:21 p.m.

    Thanks for dropping by!  We value your  continued observations of the challenge to evaluate the transition from teacher PD into student projects. Capturing data is only a small part of the tale to be measured and retold. 

     
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    Michael Kaspar
  • Icon for: Marilyn Moriarty

    Marilyn Moriarty

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 12:26 p.m.

    I agree with Bob about the student-centered approach to allow students to grasp the ideas.

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 6, 2020 | 01:59 p.m.

    We continue to advance from what we started due to your work!  Writing Science through Critical Thinking built the core concept of uniting text, visual and data.  Reading the section defining science writing led to  the appreciation of “student-centered approach” to varied  offer examples of reading materials with science topics in varied styles that fit both the ELA teachers' need to move students through styles and the science teachers work to add terms.

    The student-centered approach  is hard to foster, yet  an essential value to hold into learning expectations that can’t step off into new territory without support.    The benefit we have in working with teachers and other educators  is that we also built in the ELA option with the tools through the first  two month project in 09...then continued the practice when focused on middle school in the extension years.

      The MSP partnership included NH Cooperative Ext and continues to offer their annual National Youth Science Day kits which focused on “remote sensing” several years ago and add excellent coding steps each year since.  Last year’s STEM-for-All video includes the ELA step into coding as a language art.

    We will be looking forward to offering several books for online discussion over this summer.   

  • Icon for: Preeti Gupta

    Preeti Gupta

    Facilitator
    Director of Youth Learning and Research
    May 5, 2020 | 10:36 p.m.

    Can you describe what you do in terms of teacher PD, and what you have learned as the biggest challenges for teachers to implement the use of the Aeropod with their students? 

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 6, 2020 | 09:51 a.m.

    The Community of Practice concept extended from the successful MSP project.  During that period of early STEM and sudden launch of the Apple IPod we altered our PD to improve the continuing needs of individual teachers/members.  The teachers’ PD initially  were  the classic  sessions offered by our middle school online partner however as the membership grew the building of cohorts strengthened and were encouraged to send a representative member to the conferences or PD sessions. Other online models were available.

      This factor enabled an internal teacher to teacher teamwork to build that flexed with their schedules and districts changing annual PD focus.  We further added a “tool event” that was open to all and held at one of the extension districts.  This was an all day event designed by the teachers from white papers on their expressed interests and further needs.   Those with PD cohorts demonstrating technical integration were able to suggest their next stage beyond the schedule or tools, borrowing the items to practice with their integration.   The teachers built projects around their tools and kept them as core to their integration documentation. 

    The Aeropod as we use it in low levels, carries the same sensors (light/temp) that they use in classroom activities so become a bridge between their classroom based projects and field extensions.   As the STEM Literacy Community of Practice coordinator, I continue to build that outreach to compare with other districts but also comparison sites. 

    The biggest challenge for teachers has been time…and timing.   Approaching the use of the Aeropod as one of managing the kite event as a learning objective is extremely difficult for small schools.  Building the  ongoing learning progression of sensor integration with data analysis in collaboration with others is changing that issue.

    The positive side of the shutdown has strengthened the potential for this bridge as our projects are continuing

    Thanks for asking your questions!

  • Icon for: Leigh Peake

    Leigh Peake

    Informal Educator
    May 7, 2020 | 07:27 a.m.

    Just threw a note on your comment on our video, Betsy. Much to compare notes on! Thanks for the video insight into the very cool Aerokat work!

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 10, 2020 | 04:30 p.m.

    Leigh, 

     Thank you for stopping by.  Viewing videos throughout the week, probing with a questions and thinking about our projects potential into the future is a fine exercise and encouragement to stretch farther than expected.   As Tina writes (below), the usual problem is ensuring  evaluators can respond to the report on the full span that activities tend to flow out from their award "packaging".   

  • Icon for: Tina Bishop

    Tina Bishop

    Co-Presenter
    Education Evaluation and Research Specialist
    May 7, 2020 | 08:28 a.m.

    I agree that the greatest challenge for teachers is time. We see this from our feedback of evaluations of professional development programs. This challenge ranges from time to fully engage in the PD to time to explore activities with students that go outside typical requirements

  • Icon for: Nickolay Hristov

    Nickolay Hristov

    Facilitator
    Ph.D.
    May 7, 2020 | 12:44 p.m.

     

    This reminds me a little of EREN (Ecological Research as Education Network), which I am more familiar with as an ecologist.  Can you walk us through a project that spans both your STEM classroom community of practice and the AREN, where a student could continue past classroom instruction?  Is there a formal strategy to encourage kids and their families to continue their learning?  If so what have been some of the challenges?

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 7, 2020 | 01:57 p.m.

    Thanks for connecting with us! I’ve gone to the EREN website and explored enough to agree with you that there is a kindred spirit with our efforts and certainly with the tools.  The STEM Literacy CoP was designed as a pilot to demo PD that would  engage elementary to early middle school teachers to transition from personal favorite science topics to include emerging STEM gap areas.  The careful PD design evolved from the successful start, encouraging teachers to form their own pathways through projects with emerging digital tools connected with ELA topic focused books extending the Engineering is Elementary pilot materials. 

    These projects collect data using the Onset loggers as EREN also uses and if you explore the earlier STEM-for-All Videos you will note environmental applications and use of digital tools from other producers more commonly found in classrooms. These continue to extend in complexity, levels and span regions as well as building design.

     The challenge besides time as noted in the early discussion is risk management, and I use that term both specially to business and in the broad sense within the campus applications. Our route to full field use has been to scroll all the way back to both the teachers’ most familiar space, their classroom and how it functions. 

    We were lucky to partner with USGreen Building Council as they introduced their Green Educator Certification which form a scaffold to our focus on light and temperature through award categories in lighting and H/VAC. Currently we are monitoring soil moisture and spring flooding.  The building ties also have direct applications that build community engagement through "Triple bottom line" discussions.  

    In the video we show several of the many “window projects” that continue as part of the Community of Practice progression.  Everyone has a window somewhere….and all of them differ.  The progress from this base bridges many of the barriers of collection, analysis and trusting data tools.   No wrong answers, just more questions. 

    Thank you for your visiting probes.. and the connection to EREN. As the video shows,  we are progressing out with more knowledge about how to use sensors in partnership with ideas and in collaborations. 

  • Icon for: Andy Henry

    Andy Henry

    AEROKATS and ROVER Education Network (AREN), PI
    May 8, 2020 | 04:18 p.m.

    Here at the AEROKATS and ROVER Education Network (AREN), we are always excited to see how Betsy and her STEM Literacy Community of Practice are adopting the Aeropod platform for use in unique new applications - extending both the use cases and the potential operating environments in new directions.

    The Aeropod is an airborne remote sensing platform designed to be carried aloft by a kite or tethered balloon. The most typical applications include aerial imaging (visible and multispectral) and atmospheric profiling. The Aeropods Betsy demonstrates here were designed to carry Hobo data loggers and Pasco sensors for measuring reflectance (albedo), surface and air temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and other atmospheric and surface variables.

    Deploying the Aeropods by suspending them with rods near the ground level allows these students to gather surface level measurements which can then be compared to measurements from kite-borne Aeropods. This also allows the students to collect useful data and engage with the technology when either the weather conditions or the site location are not favorable for airborne operations. This unique adaptation has expanded our thinking on how the Aeropod platform can be use to collect data about environmental phenomena at different scales, and in a wider range of classroom and citizen science situations.

    Thanks to Betsy and her group for all the great thinking and enthusiastic participation over the years. Keep pushing those boundaries!

    Andy

     
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    Stephen Mattin
  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 9, 2020 | 05:01 p.m.

    Andy,

    Thanks for writing to describe  our varied extensions with the Aeropod.  Truly  hard to keep up with our approaches from one video as the views varies by site, season and point in our “learning progression” of those involved.   We urge visitors to look back to the   earlier STEM-for-All videos 

     To add to what you mention, we have a long engagement with water…in the air as you note..through the soil, ground water and ocean.  Connecting the full systems is a benefit of working with the Aeropod. The  close proximity enables positioning over water with the Aeropod actively moving with and pointing out the wind, adding a changing identity to what effects the  system.  The data collectors can be  set at the same pace and measurement type building a huge interlocking collection of data. 

    The students pictured were introduced to the measurement tools through thinking about the types of measurements that were part of their teachers PD with JASON Learning where the base seven measurements were stripped back to think more about precision and accuracy.  The class had hosted a visitor with a core sample and they were ready to move from linear into spatial thinking with their own activities and senses involved.   The water change of state is easy to observe, however transitioning to feel the varied wind and consider the effects was ideal in March.   

    We were also working with the progress  to build the student journals which is pictured with the short view of a STEM teacher in Oregon which compares data within our project.   We are glad to have questions regarding the video elements and clarify how we extend from the Aeropod’s design.

  • Icon for: Martin Storksdieck

    Martin Storksdieck

    Facilitator
    Director
    May 8, 2020 | 06:45 p.m.

    Thank you, Andy, for your explanation of the Aeropod. I was not familiar with them and got a little lost in the video a little. I assume teachers mostly use them in classrooms as complementary tools for authentic learning.  How many of these are currently in use?

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 10, 2020 | 09:16 p.m.

    Martin, 

     Besides the interest for classroom discussion, I test out the loggers' holders that Andy provides  on sites beyond the classroom /school grounds locations.  This practice hardly ever fails to engage an interesting discussion with those watching who find the use of a kite more approachable than most technology. The concept of wind power as well as kite power (google that term)  tend to be engaging to the public idea of advancing renewable energy in a smaller scale. Explaining albedo is an easy route into understanding climate concerns as I explain what I'm doing with the Aeropod.   

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 12, 2020 | 01:44 p.m.

    Martin, 

    To answer your question, here’s the AREN “Mission Mapper” to investigate other flight sites.  The STEM Literacy Community of Practice is adding in existing projects to our sites and have not placed our icons on the locations.  You can view the form currently in use HERE.

    Further current info on AREN is found in the Project Overview.   

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 11, 2020 | 03:46 p.m.

    The data collection  sites extend from Maine to Key West and West to Oregon with an occasional Colorado and seasonal site in OK and new site in 2019 located in AZ.   During the spring the project usually would continue the "window project", pictured in the video to collect contrasting data to the Dec-January vacation period.   This year we added an extension on soil moisture that began during the part of the video that added the digital tools and are also building up from the activities from our long activity partner, Journey North.    This spring we've added in migration observations as we have interns in locations and also we can promote active staring out windows without diverting attention from the classroom!  Our soil moisture practice began indoors with potted plants in the windows and is setting up to compare at our Aeropod Fly site in the NH Shaker Village/Museum sites.  Flying a kite is an easy way to keep social distanced!  All of our outdoor digital extensions do just fine with washing.  So as golf courses open, we'll be on track, sharing digital data is also important to guard for and train against other "virus" safeguards.  These are also risks and practices that take time to learn as we leave the classroom and extend to the fields.  

     

  • Icon for: Betsy Stefany

    Betsy Stefany

    Lead Presenter
    Coordinator STEM Literacy Community of Practice
    May 12, 2020 | 07:41 p.m.

    Thanks go out to all who stopped by and viewed our video and were part of this week's learning adventure.

    We learned a great deal and expect to remain in touch with many projects that have spent this week with us!

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.