STEM(in) with Steph

  No doubt, one of the most popular presenter topics that I get asked to do is to have a lesson that ends with Ice Cream.  The sweet treat is a good pay off for students that have a hard time listening to a guest speaker AND making it by hand has some great lessons to teach about Matter changing Phases and Energy Transfer (depending on the age level).   The opportunity to repeat my Ice Cream in a Bag demo came up again this week, so armed with better photo's this round - I'm excited to share with you the basic chemistry of Ice Cream making! How does it work and what does the Salt do? Solids, liquids, and gases are the three most common states of matter on earth (Although we could also add plasma, and Oobleck if we wanted too!).  All matter is made out of atoms.  The speed at which the matter is vibrating is what causes matter to change into different forms.  If the atoms are vibrating faster and faster - matter will melt from a solid to a liquid and ev...

Simple Sugar Glucose This month, I got to teach a class on cellular respiration, or how cells make energy.  Cellular respiration is the process of breaking down sugars into ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), what we call energy.  Cells can use Aerobic or Anaerobic pathways for breaking down sugars into energy.  Aerobic means 'with oxygen' while Anaerobic means 'without/lacking oxygen'.  Although a cell can use both pathways to produce energy, the efficiency of ATP production is greatly affected in a non-oxygen environment compared to when oxygen is present for the process.  For comparison, a single glucose (sugar) molecule will produce only 2 ATP in the fast paced and wasteful anaerobic process, while the aerobic process can produce 34-38 ATP from the same, single sugar molecule.   The complicated process of how a cell makes energy Our class experimented with yeast to see how the process works in real time.  We couldn't, of course, see the cellula...

 Planning forward for Spring 2023! Welcome to the new year and a new season of STEM talks!  If you are like me, you might be breaking out that new 2023 planner and have already started color coordinating your dates, meetings, summer camps, and maybe even a vacation squeezed in there somewhere? I'd say most of us like to plan ahead, and if you're a teacher (or parent), you are always looking ahead to the next scheduled thing to keep your kids learning and having some fun along the way.   I'm a big fan of planning ahead, so below I've put down a couple ideas for classes, activities, and just plain fun things to do that might take just a little planning beforehand to accomplish!  Chicken Embryology 101 Growth Stages One of our most popular spring projects. Learn about life cycles while you watch and learn through a real classroom hatching experience.  Classes receive 12-18 fertilized eggs, an incubator, and all hatching supplies.  The cycle typically exte...

This past week I teamed up with Mesa County 4-H Agent Melissa Wonnenberg to bring the CSU STEM Mobile Energy Trailer to the Mesa County Safety Fair. Grand Valley Power electrical coop sponsored our attendance at this awesome event where over 2,000 mesa county elementary school children were able to come and learn about safety and energy! The kids were introduced to may types of energy production including crank, click circuits, fruit powered, and wind energy.  Thanks to our Partners Grand Valley Power for sponsoring our trailer at the fair! Melissa Models! The kids really enjoyed tinkering with the clip circuits and following new pathways and connections to try to make things move or light up! Sometimes their paths didn't work, but with a few helpful hints, they were able to make things happen. The trailer itself is equipped to be totally run on power generated from solar cells OR wind power, but since we were inside the mall, those sources were not available to demonstrate. Ho...

  Streamflow and RUBBER DUCKIES?!?!?! I'm thrilled to be able to work with Oak Grove Elementary this year on their Problem Based Learning (PBL's) projects. In partnership with Dr. Barbara Shaw, CSU Extension Western Regional STEM Specialist, we are working with 5th grade students to determine the baseline water quality of Spring Creek, which runs behind their school playground. Water is one of the most important resources we have on this planet and our students are learning to both appreciate and protect that resource from pollution. Not our actual rubber duckies Today we visited the creek with our supplies of waders, nets, rulers, measuring tapes, and rubber duckies! QUACK!!! Our goal was to look at 5 different locations around the creek and determine the rate of flow of water by measuring width, average depth, and water speed (by means of racing rubber duckies!) to calculate the water's movement in Cubic Feet per Seconds (CFS). The different speeds, volumes, and movements...