STEM Blog

Cyber STEM Culmination

Posted March 3, 2017

Today marked the successful conclusion of the Spring 2017 Cyber STEM After School program. Over the last eight weeks, participants had the opportunity to build and program LEGO Robots, Ozobots and MeBos.
Students in the Cyber STEM Senior group tried their hand at soldering, exploring Javascript and programming with Unity, a game engine development platform. We are very proud of their work and look forward to seeing what they accomplish in the future.

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FLL State Championship!

Posted February 26, 2017

Our two St. Louis FLL teams competed against the top 70 teams in the state at the Maryland State Championship held at UMBC yesterday.  Both teams showed great sportsmanship, made new friends, had fun and demonstrated the values that we teach at St. Louis School.

 

A heartfelt thank you to our parent coaches: Mike Fitzsimmons, Anne Reed, Jen Sleeman, Anne West and Harold West. We would also like to especially thank Anne Reed for her ability to be at the FLL competition during the day and run the successful Night of Knights event on the same night.

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FLL State Championship!

Posted February 23, 2017

St. Louis School has two First LEGO League teams competing at the State Championship this Saturday, February 25 at the UMBC Retriever Activities Center. Opening ceremonies begin at 12:15pm and we hope to see you there! Please see the attached flyer for additional information.

Come out and cheer for SLS at the State Championship!




Breaking the Code

Posted February 23, 2017

Two of our Cyber STEM groups participated in a field trip to the National Cryptologic Museum, where they learned about the history of code making and code breaking. A particular highlight was learning about how the Allies broke the Enigma code in World War Two. The students participated in a scavenger hunt that lead them through the evolution of cryptology, including chalk symbols during the Depression, the use of Navajo soldiers in the military, simple ciphers, breaking Japanese codes, the role of encryption in WWII and an introduction to modern cryptology.
You and your child may wish to visit the National Security Agency’s Crypto Kids web site at:https://www.nsa.gov/kids/




Breaking the Code

Posted February 23, 2017

Two of our Cyber STEM groups participated in a field trip to the National Cryptologic Museum, where they learned about the history of code making and code breaking. A particular highlight was learning about how the Allies broke the Enigma code in World War Two. The students participated in a scavenger hunt that lead them through the evolution of cryptology, including chalk symbols during the Depression, the use of Navajo soldiers in the military, simple ciphers, breaking Japanese codes, the role of encryption in WWII and an introduction to modern cryptology.
You and your child may wish to visit the National Security Agency’s Crypto Kids web site at:https://www.nsa.gov/kids/




Biology Meets Technology

Posted February 16, 2017

As part of their unit on Genetics, the 7th Grade created DNA models using K'NEX. Mrs. Yuska provided them with a base sequence and their objective was to create nucleotides for each base and then use the correct hydrogen bonds to match to the complementary bases resulting in an accurate double helix model of DNA. In addition , the students have also designed 3D models of Meiosis using TinkerCad in Mrs. Whiteford's Computer Class. Tinkercad is a software program that allows students to create and print 3 dimensional physical objects.

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Cupid's Catapult

Posted February 14, 2017

Ms. Burr's 6th grade Science students spent Valentine's Day helping Cupid by designing catapults to project this arrows to lonely hearts around the world! Now that is a great way to learn about force and motion!

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Friends Across the Ocean

Posted February 7, 2017

Today Mrs. Hession’s Fourth Graders had the opportunity to test drive the brand new video conferencing system in our Library Media Center. The system allows participants to communicate with other schools, authors, scientists and experts from around the world as if they were in the room with us. Students can speak naturally from their seats and two motorized cameras focus on the speaker for a personalized experience.

Our students met their new fourth grade friends from the TG Glover Primary School in the Bahamas and exchanged questions about culture, climate and even recess activities. Both classes are learning how to use code to create games, projects and stories and they had the opportunity to ask each other questions about their progress. The call ended with a surprise appearance from Dr. Karen St. Cyr from the Ministry of Education of the Bahamas who visited us in the fall. A huge thank you to Discovery Education for helping our two schools find each other. We look forward to our continued friendship and collaboration.

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Swimming Robots?

Posted February 7, 2017

The St. Louis School MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) team has been busy building their underwater robot for an April competition at Villanova University. The team has split the responsibilities into two teams, electrical and mechanical. The electrical team is working on circuits while the mechanical is focused on building the robot.  A huge “Thank You” to the coaches and parent volunteers who are making this opportunity possible for our students.

 

“The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center was established with funding from the National Science Foundation in 1997. MATE’s mission is to use marine technology to inspire and challenge students to learn and creatively apply science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to solving real-world problems in a way that strengthens critical thinking, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and innovation.” Learn more about MATE by visiting the link below: http://www.marinetech.org/

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Harmless Hunters headed to States!

Posted February 6, 2017

St. Louis School is proud to announce that we now have two teams going to the First LEGO League State Championship! Today at JHU Applied Physics Lab the Harmless Hunters earned a spot at the state competition and will be joining the Bunny Bacon Builders at UMBC. Congratulations to team members, parent coaches, volunteers and everyone who came out to cheer us on. Way to Go Knights!

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5th Annual STEM Family Fun Night

Posted February 6, 2017

As a part of our Catholic Schools Week celebrations, we hosted our 5th Annual Family STEM Night this week and it was a blast! The Science Guys of Baltimore did not disappoint and the students loved learning about science in a fun and dynamic way. In our classroom activities we did some great team building while learning about electrical conductivity with LED critters, engineering with a balloon tower challenge, force and motion with catapults, and worked on building our creativity by making our own STEM Superheros!
A great big shout-out to our FIRST Lego League Teams: Buddy Bacon Builders and Harmless Hunters for presenting their skills to the crowd. Best of luck to Harmless Hunters who will be competing in their qualifier on Saturday Afternoon at APL.

Lastly a great by SLS "Thank You" to all the teachers and staff who stayed to help out – we couldn’t do it without you!

 

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Calculating Success

Posted February 6, 2017

As part of a Linear Function Unit, Mrs. Briskey's Eighth Grade Algebra class creates scatter plots and finds the equation for the line of best fit using graphing calculators. Familiarity with these calculators will be a critical skill in High School.

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