Organising a STEAM week - an approach for primary schools

I'm sorry I have been so bad at updating this blog post. I simply haven't had the time, or the head space, to write up what I have been doing. 

We were very luck to have support from the PSA so that STEAM week could start with a bang. OK, not quite a bang but a series of 360^o movies shown on a pop up dome. These domes provide an opportunity to present a different learning experience to children and are therefore a valuable additional resource. The movies can be catered per year and we managed to squeeze shows for the whole school in a one-day hire. Details of the dome, movies they have and prices can be found here 

I heard about this dome at one of the STEM ambassadors training courses about a year ago. The trip into the genome and the Fibonacci sequence movies were amazing so I was quite happy to see it coming to the school - even though it took a year to find the funds... like anything else in STEM, perseverance and a can-do attitude are key!

I tried to capture some of the images on my phone as you can see above. The photos don't do it justice but you can see some little clips of their movies on this web page.

The dome in the background and a demonstration project - photo source 

The feedback from the kids and staff was really good. Although some kids in Year 5 struggled with the roller coaster around Saturn... apparently some felt a bit queasy. :-S

The next step was to look at the curriculum for each year group and come up with a series of activities that would bring art and science together. I provided the school with a series of suggestions for each year and from that they derived their own programme of activities based on staff availability and materials available to support delivering it. 

I also suggested a series of demonstrator projects which we could set up in a separate room so that kids could see, and interact, with science meets art displays. It turned out to be too ambitious and we didn't get it up in the end. Perseverance and all of that - there is always a next time!

In case it is helpful here are my proposed ideas:

Type/Yr	Theme	Projects
Reception	Dinosaurs	*measuring things against Dinosaur feet  idea 1 and 2  * make fossils * make a dinosaur skeleton with kitchen roll *make a dinosaurr with rotation and tessellation
Yr 1	Seasons	*water cycle * tree changing colours * Why are plants green - as done before *make a pin-wheel
Yr 2	Local Animals + habitats	*how do penguins (or ducks) stay dry *build a bug habitat * make habitats - a spider web (with wool), or birds nests, or beehives etc *birds homes *make a bug/animal
Yr 3	forces	*milk printing *car magnets *monster jaws *magnet painting *catapult *static electricity - build a butterfly
Yr 4	shadows? Day & night?	*light patterns using a CD *Kaleidoscope  idea 1 and 2
Yr 5	Space	*Earth atmosphere *Make a mobile or this one *space box *star constellations *does the moon rotate
Yr 6	classification
Demonstration Projects
		* m&m experiment * plants drinking water: celery    * pendulum painting *a robot to colour in *lava lamp *paper plane challenge * hot air as a force - hairdryer and ping pong ball; or make a hot air balloon over a toaster; or tea bag rocket * create 3D shapes - marshmallows and toothpics *paper building blocks *magnetic doodles *spinning tops - and the disappearing colours *colour migration * magnets - pipe cleaners

In the end this is what the school decided to go with, an ambitious programme of activities as you can see.

I can't wait to see the finished articles which will be available as part of a show after half term. I will update this blog post with photos as soon as I can. 

Busy with a STEAM project - photo source 

Happy STEAM week everyone!