STEM SCOOP

“No Act of

Kindness,

however

small, is ever

wasted.”

-Aesop

In This Issue

NJHS

Levels 2, 3 & 6

Students of the

Month

Primary & Technolo-

gy

Playground equip-

ment & Feature

Teachers

From the Principals... CSA families,

The month of October has been quite busy for CSA students, staff, and families. We successfully inducted eleven students into NJHS, had students build/decorate our homecoming float, and parent teacher conferences to name a few of the events. Following parent teacher conferences, please reach out if you have further questions or concerns.

We cannot believe that November is already upon us. At CSA we have a great deal to be thankful for! With that said, we want to encourage parents to volunteer for our day of gratitude as well as everyday worktime in our classrooms. Please seek out opportunities to support your child's classroom. In addition, both buildings have a volunteer bulletin board with ideas for supporting our classrooms.

Project based learning continues to drive instruction at CSA. Many projects around our school are coming to an end, while others are just beginning. Teach-ers are always looking for experts in various fields, so please reach out to teach-ers with areas where you would be able to support PBL in our school as an expert. We house this information in a central location for all teachers to access. Finally, please do not forget to follow us on Facebook and the WPS app.

Kind Regards, Brenda Martin & Heather McGuire

Colorado STEM Academy Newsletter November 2016

National Junior Honor Society On October 13th, 2016, Colorado STEM Academy inducted it’s second group of National Junior Honor Society members. New members include: Kevin Castillo, Caitlyn Harlow, Willow Wilson, Logan Kessel, Gavin Peterson, Denise Gutierrez, Alex-andra Garcia Martinez, Nevaeh Davis, Chau Nguyen, Freddie Budgell, Katelynn Ibrahim, Serena Gonzalez, and JR Loya. They join returning members: Danielle Duran, Garrett Fergu-son, Tyler George, Julieanna Knief, Ian McGillicuddy, James Overberg, Pierce Smeester, and Passion Steinhaus. Each member was selected based on their citizenship, leader-ship, character, scholoarship, and service. NJHS members are committed to helping their school and community. Some of the items they are currently working on are volunteering at the Scholastic Book Fair, creating morning meeting ideas for grades K-8, and helping mentor elementary students.

NJHS has big plans for the future including a schoolwide penny war competition to help raise money for local charities, selling wooden roses during Valentine’s week, and taking part in the Day of No Hate in April. NJHS is always looking for new ways to be involved in the school community as well as the local community so if you know of any great opportuni-ties, feel free to let us know.

Levels 2 & 3 In the beginning of November, level 3 students will begin their next PBL called Science of Flight PBL. Air is all around us. We know that air can hold up heavier-than-air objects such as kites, gliders, and airplanes, but how does it do that? What forces act on an airplane or glider? Students will use aerodynamic concepts to explain how the motion of air and other forces act on gliders and other aircraft. During the Science of Flight PBL, students will learn about the forces involved in flight as well as Newton’s Laws of Mo-tion. Then they will design, build, and test an experimental model glider to find out how air and other forces affect its flight. In addition, they will apply a design process to the problem of delivering aid to an area where supplies must be airlifted in and dropped to the ground from an aircraft. Also this fall, our level 2 students will begin their next PBL called Preventing Landslides: Save the City! In this Project Lead the Way module students will explore how the surface of the Earth is always changing. They will be introduced to differ-ent kinds of maps and explore how these maps convey different kinds of information about the world we live in, including where water is found on Earth. Students will investigate the different forces that shape the surface of the Earth and de-sign solutions to limit the impact of erosion on a fictional community.

Greetings from Level 6! Or should we say,

"Beep bop beep!"

Level 6 is working on a Robotics PBL this month. In this project-based engineering lesson, our students are exploring different types of robots and how they help our society, learning about sensors and how to use a robot's inputs and out-puts, how robots can fix environmental issues, and even designing and building our own ro-bots! Be sure to ask your students about what they are learning in our robotics unit.

Students of the Month

Damian Espinoza

Maeve Stoller

Ivan Vang

Micah Lockwood

Erick Cochenour

Noah Lucero

Sean Kelly

Nathan McCracken

Hunter Goll

Layla March

Kayden Duran

Kevin Schlessman

Logan Kessell

Tahlia Fish

Ixchel Velasco Bau-tista

Giselle Laguna

Ashton Hall

Kevin Castillo

Michelle Rascon

Rickie Burns

Nevaeh Davis

See What Our Primary Students are up to!

Kindergarten and Level One classes have

absolutely loved Buddy Reading with Level

four and five kids! Since August, Miss Pitz’s

class has visited K-1 classes several times to

read picture books with younger kids one-on-

one. For Primary kids, spending time with

older kids and hearing them read is a high-

light of our day.

K-1 kids continue to explore books at the Irving Street Library. The walk

over is a huge adventure. Read aloud time with the librarian is a big treat.

In the afternoons, Kindergarten and Primary classes explore topics in

weather, light, and sound. In Miss Brooks’s class, kids go outside to ob-

serve fall weather changes, and record what they see. In Miss McCor-

mick’s and Mrs. Yameen’s classes, kids collaborate to tackle challenges in

light and sound. Kids must consider: how can we communicate with lim-

ited materials, such as string, cups, and paper clips; or with just a flashlight and a mirror?

Red Ribbon Week has been a huge hit in Primary, with almost 100% participation throughout the

week. Kids were preppie in plaid and buttons on Monday. Ninja turtle pajamas were popular on

Tuesday. Fairies and wizards floated in on Thursday.

Technology Education

Our primary engineers are at it again! Mrs. Yameen’s class is learning about the design process

through architecture. As a team builder, students used their knowledge of shapes in a competition to

build the tallest structure out of five sheets of paper and masking tape! We had some very creative

results. Throughout our PBL, students will learn aspects of communities and architecture to create

haunted houses for our Trick or Treat Street at the middle school.

Above: Jeff & Dillon won

the challenge with a 14 “

tower

Right: Students hard at

work in the build lab.

Above: Selena & Natalle

came in 2nd place with a

cylindrical 11” tower

Left: We never said that

engineering wasn’t

messy!

Q & A

Do you have a burning

question you would like an-

swered about Colorado

STEM Academy? Send

your question to Mrs. Martin

at bmar-

tin@westminsterpublicschoo

ls.org, with the subject line

“burning question.” Maybe

we’ll feature your question in

next month’s newsletter!

New Playground Equipment @ CSA

The Colorado STEM Academy is excited about all our new recess

equipment! In addition to a large shipment of basketballs, hoola

hoops, footballs and volleyballs, students can now enjoy tetherball,

foursquare, and basketball. The district crew used the long week-

end in October to paint basketball, foursquare and tetherball courts

onto our blacktop. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, CSA’s parent-run

wellness committee sponsors a walking club for students. Kids do

laps around our field to walk the equivalent of a 14,000 foot moun-

tain! Students in all grade levels are loving all the options for re-

cess.

Left: Jordan and Kori play a friendly game of tetherball

Below Right: Kyle and Logan are committed members of the walk-

ing club!

Left: The girls get

their feet stamped

for completing a

lap.

Below Left: Miles

and Ryan go back

& forth in tetherball

Below: Intermediate

students love play-

ing foursquare

Reminders

Children under the age of

twelve cannot go to the

library after school unsu-

pervised.

Students should be

wearing a STEM shirt to

school every day. STEM

shirts are now available.

Please see visit the

school store Monday,

Wednesday, Friday from

3:30-4:00

Fall weather will be com-

ing soon! Please make

sure your child comes

prepared with a jacket

every day.

Like STEM? Make it offi-

cial. Follow us on Face-

book at Colorado STEM

Academy. See the amaz-

ing pics of the crea-

tive projects your kids

make at STEM. Share our

page with your network.

Feature Teachers Moira McCormick: I absolutely love getting to know the students in my primary classroom at CSA this year. Morning meeting and read aloud are my favorite parts of the day.

I grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, where I moved back to after I finished Bache-lor of Arts in Political Science at Davidson College in North Carolina. I spent time work-ing with youth through my job at the YWCA and it changed my life. I started what would become several years of volunteer teaching reading and writing to adults. Soon after, I enrolled in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder to study elementary education.

Michelle Vadnais: I absolutely love being able to create cre-ative learning projects this year with my students through project-based learning. Some of my favorite projects creat-ed this year are the Dystopian Societies, where students made our own dystopian worlds to learn author's point of view with our class book, Oreo Moon Phases, made models of meteor crashes, foreign politics presentations, invented our own ideal presidential candidate for writing narratives, our robotics PBL, and our chalk solar system. Learning with my level 6 kids has been a real adventure, and it has been extremely rewarding to see my students grow in their learn-ing and confidence while learning how to use a STEM thought process. I absolutely love this school, and can't wait

to see what the rest of the school year brings! It has been an absolute privilege to work with all of my students and their parents so far this year.

Colorado STEM Academy: Preparing Today’s Student for Life

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 Early Release 3 4 1st Trimester

Ends

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 Awards

Assembly

12

13 14 15 16 Early Release 17 18 Festival of

Gratitude

19

20 21 No School 22 No School 23 No School 24 No School 25 No School 26

27 28 29 30

NOVEMBER 2016