Author: Brandon Darst
Planning Unit: Madison County CES
Major Program: Science, Engineering and Technology 4-H Core Curriculum
Plan of Work: Expand Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math (STEM) Education
Outcome: Long-Term Outcome
According to National Science Foundation, “In the 21st century, scientific and technological innovations have become increasingly important as we face the benefits and challenges of both globalization and a knowledge-based economy. To succeed in this new information-based and highly technological society, students need to develop their capabilities in STEM to levels much beyond what was considered acceptable in the past.”
Local teachers in Madison County had been searching for new activities for science, engineering, and technology due to the new science standards for Kentucky’s 4th and 5th grade classrooms. Knowing this was a hot topic among teachers the CES stepped in and offered to help. The CES met with the teachers and formed a schedule to bring in science related 4-H lessons each month into the majority of the classrooms.
The CES provided lessons and curriculum for the students. The CES conducted lessons dealing with electricity, physics, dissection, motion, robots, and coding. In the process, the CES has been faced with agent turn over the past couple years and through this collaboration was able to build better and stronger relationships with a couple of schools who historically was not active with 4-H. Due to the success of the offered science programs, 100% of the teachers are wanting more 4-H activities in their classrooms next year.
One of the teachers gave a test on the parts of the eyeball and only 65% of her students were able to pass it. Obviously disappointed the teacher reached out to CES and asked if 4-H had any lesson that could help. CES was able to provided cow eye dissection for the students. The CES agent went step by step in dissecting, exploring, and labeling each part. The teacher was pleased that after the lesson, 82% of her students were able to pass the test with ease.
In a collaborative effort, Waco Elementary and CES hosted parents and grandparents to join their students in the classroom for SET Day. The students were given the task to teach their relatives how to code using different types of technology and programming. The adults learned from their student that technology has several different languages and communication styles in order to communicate. 80% of the parents and grandparents had never coded before.
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