Aquaponics in Makers Lab - We've Got FISH!

We started lettuce and spinach just over two weeks ago. We have micro-greens ordered. When we see some growth, I'll get some photos posted!

Our other big news is that last Tuesday we picked up our tilapia fish for our aquaponics set up. We started with 44 fish this year. At the moment, we've only lost one!

Last year a week into our introduction, we had lost about 10 fish. We've made improvements this time around to prevent the losses we initially had last year.

Once of the changes is that we cycled the water longer with ammonia this year. I also think the clay pellets had old bacteria still embedded. When we brought the system up, I believe that the bacteria rejuvenated and is managing to break down the ammonia better.

We also had an great Makers Lab moment, which you can see in this photo (the fish are too tiny to capture a good photo right now, but this is the day we put them in!). We were having an evaporation issue and we need to add water every day. Our aquaponics system is on the opposite side of the classroom from our sink. We were running a hose across the floor (tripping hazard), rolling and unrolling hose each day (time consuming), and when we rolled hose there almost always was water spilled across the floor.

With a little finagling, we ran the hose up through the drop tiled ceiling and across the room. Now the hose stays in place, we save time, and have a safer and cleaner Makers Lab! 

Makers Lab: Train Table Update

For the past several weeks our construction crews in the Makers Lab have been busy building by first connecting two tables, then attaching styrofoam to the tables, and using a hot wire knife to cut and shape pieces of styrofoam for two large hills on our train tables.

The first hill (the one you see above) is Holy Hill on the top of which sits Holy Hill Church a landmark that can be seen for many surrounding miles. We've also planned and sketched the roads and railroad tracks as well as Friess Lake.

We also have students working on constructing scale trees, foliage, and a replica of the Holy Hill Church. These are all to scale. We used Google Earth photos, saw the length of a car in the parking lot, we extrapolated the length of the building from the length of that car.

In the photo above, a student is applying plaster gauze to form the contours of the hillside.

The second hill will be a local ski hill complete with a chalet and a working ski lift (we hope!). All this will be done in N-Scale.

Makers Space Tour - Illinois Children Museums

Last weekend we took a mini family vacation to Moline, Illinois. Our grandkids are crazy about John Deere and it's the perfect place to take them for big JOHN DEERE fun!

While in the Quad Cities, we visited the Family Museum a small, but fantastic place for children to learn through play. I combed for ideas for organizing our Makers Lab while we were there!

The Family Museum in Bettendorf, Iowa had an elegant way to lay out their workbenches where children could come in and build from materials that were provided. Just look at these work sites! They even have multiple heights to accommodate various heights of kids.

This museum was geared toward younger kids, which we witnessed with our younger grandchildren (those under 5) feeling right at home. The older two kids, 6 and 11, still had a good time and were able to make and create.

Our second museum stop was a detour on our way home. We stopped at the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford, Illinois which was amazing! We were visiting over Halloween weekend so we were lucky to participate in a Pumpkin Chuckin' special event where kids launched pumpkins using a large and a small scale trebuchet. Inside the museum, we couldn't get the kids out! This time we only had our two older grandkids, the rest had headed home. The older ones enjoyed themselves and I think our younger ones would have had just as much fun.

There were great opportunities for the kids to create and make. Our two kids designed their own woodworking projects and built upon their skills.

The following two photos are some of the items on display. The atmosphere was inspiring.

I saw some wonderful examples of organizing and establishing the Makers Lab that I couldn't help but comb for our Makers Lab. Check out the materials storage below. These are 3 and 5 gallon buckets set into crafted plywood shelving units. Holes are cut into the plywood and the buckets rest neatly inside. Duct tape in colorful patterns is placed across the bottom one-third of the buckets to help keep items contained. For any of you in a Makers Lab or Makers Space, you can imagine what this collection can bring to the chaos that is a Makers Space!

These are larger cardboard barrels with various pieces of wood, styrofoam, cardboard, plastic... essentially junk! But this junk can be treasure when sorted and stored so children can easily begin imagining and creating. And when the time is up, it's easy for the kids to sort their items back out.

If you're looking a creative way to spend an afternoon in the Midwest, I'd recommend both the Family Museum in the Quad Cities area and the Discovery Center in Rockford, Illinois. Your kids will thank you for it...and you'll probably have fun too!

Middle School Design Day

We had a middle-school-wide Design Day with our sixth, seventh and eighth graders. We wanted to give children the experience of using engineering design principles.

The engineering design principle is sophisticated trial and error method. First you create your idea, then sketch it out. Next you build a prototype. Finally you build your final project. All along the way you are testing, revising and modifying your project.

We we set aside about 45 minutes for this challenge. The students were working in multiple rooms so that they had enough room to work. We gave them their challenge and sent them to work!

CHALLENGE
Build the tallest tower.

MATERIALS

• Four half-sheets of newspaper per team
• Four full sheets of newspaper per team
• Duct tape
• Pencil
• Paper

Prototype materials: Four (4) half-sheets of newspaper and duct tape
Drawing materials: Paper, pencil
Final project: Four (4) full sheets of newspaper and 24 inches of duct tape

Students began by making a drawing of what they planned their tower should look like. They then constructed a small prototype. After which, they had about 20 minutes to construct a freestanding tower using 4 full sheets of newspaper and 24 inches of duct tape.

Here is the result. I didn't capture a photo of the tallest tower, but what I will tell you is that neither of these below are the tallest! The winner was over eight inches taller!

Election Day!

Did you vote? I haven't yet...but I'm headed there soon! I'm so grateful for the right to have input and I plan to exercise that right tonight. I'm pleased to live in a country that allows me to freely vote and to do so in safety. Sometimes I forget how treasured our freedom is. But not today. Today, I'll vote and celebrate our country and remember how hard so many have worked to allow us this opportunity.

Makers Lab: Programming and Coding

During my visit last week to the Makers Lab, it was loud! Kids were using hand tools and power tools. They were collaborating. There was no shortage of noise and activity. In the adjoining room, I notice two students sitting quietly with an iPad and a MacBook, in complete contrast to the power tools revving on the other side of the room. 

Tyler shared his project with me. He was busy writing code for the video game, Minecraft. While I talked with him, he was trying to make the menu page more visually appealing. His first round of code, “made the menu a little jumbled up.” 

By the end of the Lab, he was moving on from the menu to creating a special Christmas version. When he is ready, he plans to move on from Minecraft to working on web pages and apps.

This demonstrated to me the diversity that a Makers Lab allows. As some students thrive in group environments, others are more introverted and work well on their own. I am so impressed with the ability of these students to dive into a project with focus and drive because they are curious and want to know more. What a triumph for a teacher to educate without force and pressure. To allow a student to express himself through a project. To create an environment with no limits.

I wish for that in all schools. I wish for students to be allowed to be curious and inventive. To generate their own successes from their own trials and errors. To love learning and solving problems. To become so engrossed that they forget that they are learning.

Makers Lab: Scale Model Railway and Local Community

When students in the Makers Lab are at a break in their own projects, they have a group project that they can work on. The class is making a replica of the surrounding landscape, roads, and railways on a scale train table. The train table is in the early stages. We believe that learning should be hands on and applicable to real life. 

The students had mapped out the local area and were beginning to make scenery using plants cut from their school prairie. Near the end of the class, Mr. Hoefs was showing them the next step: creating the Kettle Moraine glacier formations that make their local community unique in Southern Wisconsin. These glacial formations allow for stunning, albeit roller coaster-like, driving conditions during all seasons. In the coming classes, the students will begin forming these hills and valleys and the switchback main highway that runs through the stunning landscape.