​Have you heard of this thing called a Makey Makey?  If not, you should definitely check it out.  When fifth graders at Rodgers Forge created PSAs in Scratch, they wanted a cool and interactive way to share them with their classmates.  Enter…the Makey Makey!  It’s a simple device that turns everyday objects into a touchpad.  Students built an object of their choice in the school’s makerspace, such as a remote control or a TV frame with different buttons on the front, and they hooked up the Makey Makey wires to conductive points on their object (using foil).  When someone pushes on each of the conductive “buttons” they created on their object, a different part of their PSA played in Scratch.  Check out this video to see more about this project.

Submitted by Chibuzor Chukwu, Dr. Amy Parlette
English 10-11, Chesapeake High School, Math Department Chair

Submitted by Lakecia Hines
​4th Grade Teacher and M.E.S.A. Leader,  Church Lane Elementary School

​Church Lane Elementary (CLETS) students in grades four and five participated in the Maryland M.E.S.A. (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) program for the first time during the 2016-2017 school year. M.E.S.A. is a structured, after school, pre-college program designed to prepare students for academic and professional careers in a STEM field. The twenty-five students that participated, worked collaboratively on various engineering project and science research projects. The students faithfully met every Wednesday after school and worked on a number of hands on learning tasks in addition to meaningfully using technology in order to complete the tasks at hand. 

​M.E.S.A provides an opportunity for students to interact with various professionals in STEM related fields to discuss their profession, educational pursuits, and other opportunities that are available to students. CLETS students had an opportunity to meet with midshipmen from the Unites States Naval Academy and personnel from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (JHU Applied Physics Lab) on a field trip in October 2016. The JHU Applied Physics Lab is also, the main sponsor of Maryland MESA. 

In March 2017, CLETS students then participated in Regional MESA Day at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) to compete with other MESA teams throughout Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS). The students worked on projects prior to MESA Day for the various challenges. The students were divided into four teams: Cyber Security, Storybook Theme Park Ride, Effective Communication, and Wood Bridge Challenge. All of the aforementioned challenges are designed using Next Generation Science Standards.
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The Cyber Security Awareness Challenge, the students use Scratch program (developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) which is an introductory teaching tool for computer programming. Scratch makes it easy for students to create and share interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art, via the Scratch website. Students use scratch in order to create a game with the theme of their choosing to create awareness to Cyber Safety. By creating Scratch projects, students will learn important problem-solving skills as well.

The Story book Theme Park Ride Challenge is to expose students to the engineering process through the design and construction of a functional model theme park ride based on a storybook of the team’s choosing. The ride had to be designed to safely carry one golf ball, two Ping-Pong balls, and a standard-sized marshmallow through two consecutive test runs.

The Effective Communication: Advocacy for Social Concern is a presentation competition for elementary school student teams of four to eight students each. Each team created a compelling public service announcement (PSA) to raise awareness and present a recommended action in response to a global, national, or local issue of concern.
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The Wood Bridge Challenge is to engage students in the engineering and design process through the construction of a wood bridge, were assessed for its strength-to weight ratio (efficiency). Constructed bridges were to be simplified versions of real world bridges, which are designed to accept a load in virtually any position and support that load without failure/collapse. In this challenge, only one loading position (the center position) was tested.

Although the students didn’t place in the categories, they were encouraged about the possibilities of next year’s challenge. The students enjoyed interacting with other teams and learning from their peers.

Participating in Maryland MESA has sparked student interest in STEM related fields. As a result, it has transferred into their classroom learning behaviors through problems solving and inquiry. I am excited to see the changes in these students and anticipate great things for them in the Maryland MESA program. If you are interested in this program for your school please go to the following website for more information:  https://secwww.jhuapl.edu/mesa