Registration | Log In

Search Grants | Fulfilled Grants | More About Find It, Fund It, Florida

Share

Please share this page to help in fulfilling this grant.

Goal

Our goal is to enhance the Kindergarten-1st grade student STEM experience through the use of LEGO Education SPIKE sets to help students at the earlier ages get an interest and outlet to be able to build with LEGO while using coding to see their creations come to life. As a result of getting funding for this grant, students will build an active interest and passion toward STEM early on for the benefit of critical thinking and a deep exploration of the Engineering Design Process that will last for years after.
Please consider funding this program to help our youngest students (5-7) explore STEM concepts, express their creativity, and build a love of STEM at an early age.  

 

What will be done with my students

If we get funding for these 3 kits, the students will engage and explore in various STEM content areas the Engineering Design Process. There are a total of 40 lessons provided initially through LEGO's website and a kit is stated to be used for 2 students. I plan on having a group of 5-6 students per kit, since they will need more scaffolding to be able to use these materials effectively. I would also challenge students to utilize these kits in ways beyond the given curriculum to attempt additional STEM challenges to help further their creative thinking abilities, problem-solving, and the engineering design process.  

 

Benefits to my students

Students will receive a multitude of benefits if they are able to utilize these kits in our STEM program. Students will learn about problem-solving with regard to creating functional LEGO models and testing them, programming them, and reflecting on whether or not the desired outcome was achieved or if they need to go back to the drawing board, so-to-speak. Students will learn about literacy, math, science, and engineering concepts while also learning to work collaboratively with one another and communicate effectively to each other about the projects at-hand. We need students gaining access to appropriate and up-to-date materials to help them gain the greatest edge in becoming adept in STEM concepts at earlier ages as well as to drive more students to want to pursue STEM careers as young adults.  

 

Describe the Students

My students range in various levels of competency from the core subjects of math, science, and language arts from 1st grade and Kindergarten. They are from various backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds. Students were selected for the STEM program The common element that binds them together is a interest in STEM and a desire to maximize hands-on learning opportunities. The students have been working through various building challenges using the Engineering Design Process with low-expense materials but are working up toward being able to utilize more sophisticated devices, such as these LEGO Education Spike STEAM kits.  

 

Budget Narrative

I have selected three of the LEGO Education SPIKE Essential series kits for our STEM program to get us up and running with the First LEGO League. Since we have 3 kits and our age group are Kindergarten/1st Grade, we will utilize these kits in groups of five students with each student serving in a different role each week that we have our STEM academy so that all students get a chance to experience building, coding, testing, debugging, reflecting, and sharing. Since this is the first time we've had a STEM academy for this age group, this would be a fabulous start to our program and we'll continue to expand in the coming years.  

 

Items