STEAMing with Climate Action Kits

Moderation state
funded
Grant Applicant
Heidi Bushway Verkler
Grant Co-applicants
Tina Kiewit
School Site
North Tahoe School
Grant Category
Technology
Grant Date
2024-06-01T12:00:00
Description

STEAMing with Climate Action Kits is a grant program that will provide knowledge and tools necessary to address environmental issues with 7th and 8th Graders at North Tahoe School (NTS). Forward Education is a company that is dedicated to promoting environmental stewardship and climate action among students. This grant will allow students to explore and learn more about climate change through the use of Climate Action Kits and micro:bits, which are already used in the NTS STEAM Lab. The kits will add to a new unit on sustainability which will be brought into the 7th & 8th Graders STEAM curriculum next year. These kits are comprehensive resources that are designed to engage students in hands-on learning experiences related to climate change, waste reduction, renewable energy and sustainable living practices. The kits contain interactive materials, experiments and curriculum guides aligned to stands making this an extremely useful resource for educators and students.

 

Benefits of Program

STEAMing with Climate Action Kits will be a program that will enhance and be a key component of a new unit I plan to bring to the students in my STEAM Lab at NTS on sustainability. These kits utilize micro:bits, which is a piece of hardware that I currently use in the lab. These kits will enhance existing curriculum by providing more hands-on learning by engaging students in experiential learning opportunities that would help deepen and broaden students understanding of sustainability. This program will equip students with hands on learning. Students will build robotics kits that foster critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration skills with the building of the interactive simulators. Students will become empowered by gaining knowledge from the online curriculum presenting them with real world content as well as gaining and analyzing information from their own experiments. This knowledge will empower them to become environmental advocates and agents within our own community. Another benefit to the STEAMing with Climate Action Kits is that students will build on what they already know about micro:bits and coding and apply it to environmental experimentation through exploration of topic such as carbon footprint reduction, renewable energy, and waste management.

Success of Program

Students will show success of this program by learning about climate change, waste reduction, renewable energy and sustainable living practices while enhancing their coding skills with the use of a familiar hardware in micro:bits. The all in one kits are built by the students, they then follow the online curriculum that will support their learning and scaffold their coding so that they can interact with simulators to learn more about the above topics.

Implementation

Upon receiving the Climate Action Kits, the following steps will be taken to implement the program effectively in the NTS STEAM Lab:

Curriculum Integration: The activities and resources provided in the kits will be incorporated into STEAM lessons, project-based learning units, and possibly into environmental clubs. These kits will help enhance a unit on sustainability that will be taught next year.

Student Engagement: Students will actively participate in hands-on experiments, discussions, and projects facilitated by the Climate Action Kits, fostering a deeper understanding of climate science and sustainability. Students will be encouraged to share their findings with other students in the school, as well as online with other middle school students. 

Community Engagement: This program will extend beyond the classroom, involving families and community members and other middle school students through possible outreach events and collaborative projects focused on climate action and environmental stewardship with students at NTS and possibly other middle school students.

The following link is video showing Climate Action Kits in action.

Can you share this grant with your grade level or subject team?

Tina Kiewit, 6th Grade teacher at Alder Creek Middle School, and I attended the Spring CUE (Computer Using Educators) Conference and spent time with representatives from the company, Forward Education, discussing these Climate Action Kits and their utilization. We were discussing ways that our students can share data and ideas with each other. This will be a motivating way to share information with an authentic audience. 

Sustainability
If STEAMing with Climate Action Kits is funded this grant will be sustainable. The kits utilize hardware, micro:bits, that are currently used in the NTS STEAM Lab. If anything breaks within the first two years of use the kits are under a full warranty. After that time then the Measure AA Tech funds could be utilized to purchase more pieces or other components.
Amount Funded
$4954.00
Individual Budget Items(s)
$4500 - 2 Climate Action Kit Class Pack
Shipping
$127.41
Taxes
$326.25
Other funding sources

In the future, Measure AA Tech funds could be used to purchase necessary and needed components.

File Uploads
Climate Action Kit One-Pager - 2024.01.04 - USD-compressed_1.pdf (1.53 MB)
pricing.jpg (429.51 KB)
Supporting Links
Solutions
Forward Education
Kits in Action
Notes

If this grant was to be fulfilled it will make for an exciting and hands on new sustainability unit that I plan on implementing in the NTS STEAM Lab next year. This unit will allow for my students to think about the future and find ways to make living more sustainable for our community. I'm requesting two classroom sets for a total of 20 Climate Action Kits. This would allow all of my STEAM students to work in groups of 2 - 3 where they would share different roles when conducting experiments and all students would be able to successfully and full engage in all aspects of the simulations.  Measure AA Tech funds support the tech needs of the whole school building, grades 6 - 8. Grants allow for more exciting learning opportunities for the varied needs of STEAM Lab that serves as an elective class for over 175 students per year. This grant would allow for more engaging and hands on learning experiences for these students.