RAFT Hands-On Education

By Amanda Amburgey M.A, Maker Science Teacher, Bulldog Tech  What is going on in this classroom? There are kids everywhere excitedly making, testing, remaking, retesting, hot gluing, hammering, there is so much duct tape!  This is what engineering looks like in a middle school science class.   This is excited, meaningful learning.  How did I get to this place where I feel comfortable facilitating such an active engineering process with my classes?  As a science teacher I have had practice with hands on, inquiry based labs, technology and math makes their way into those labs easily.  But, engineering had me stumped.  How was I going to be an effective engineering teacher as required with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) when I knew so little about engineering?   This is where RAFT and their STEM workshops really saved me and gave me the courage to start engineering projects.  I started with a somewhat common misc...

Rita Mercado, First Grade Teacher, Serendipity School The idea of having parents come into the classroom can be overwhelming at times, but it is an important step in having them gain an understanding of the learning that happens throughout the day that isn’t able to be sent home in the form of checked work or a neat looking project. As I began to incorporate more STEM and STEAM projects into my curriculum, I started thinking about how I could paint a clear picture for the parents about just what it was that we were doing. Of course the idea was introduced at Back to School Night and written about in newsletters, but what else could I do. I invited the parents in for a STEAM Night. After giving a brief introduction on the acronyms and examples of what this looks like in the classroom, the parents were able to move around the room and participate in activities designed for exploration. Once they had a few minutes to play, I posed some questions and challenges...

Great hands-on teaching activities for Valentine's Day! Do your students want to give something special to their parents on this Valentine’s Day? Send home a sweet surprise with RAFT’s ‘ Bouquet of Flowers ’, a hands-on activity where your students can design and make their own flower bouquets with just cardstock, flower images and scissors! These flowers are sure to last forever! Or you can help your pupils create unique DIY valentine hearts with RAFT’s ‘ Foil Art ’. With just foil and adhesive cardstock their foil art creation can melt their parents’ heart! Valentine’s Day can also be a great day to teach Science by focusing on flowers, one of the most gifted V Day present! With The RAFT’s ‘ Preserving the Petals ’ hands-on activity , elementary and middle school students can learn about plant structures and functions. This activity creatively repurposes materials like pipette holders and paper towels! With RAFT Idea Sheets and materials, you can go green this Valenti...

With Valentine’s Day round the corner, one of RAFT ’s upcoming weekend workshops – ‘Shrink Art Fun’ shows you how to recycle plastic into awesome shrink art! This year learn how to make some meaningful gifts using donated plastic material, available at RAFT in the form of trays and take-out containers, thus preventing them from ending up in a landfill.  Shrink plastics encourage creativity, and can be used to supplement a variety of classroom activities.  Students can create models, manipulatives, and displays. They can make maps, pins, book report characters, and even cards!  But there is also a science behind this hands on art form! Says Instructor Georgina Patterson, who has been in the education field for 40 years, “The science behind the shrinkage process is a chemistry lesson in itself, and the excitement young children get when they watch the plastic change size in the oven is worth the effort!” The base material consists of thin, flexible polystyrene plast...