Photo By Monica Mccoy | STEM literacy books, such as these, are included in a Navy STEM-In-a-Box collection....... read more read more
When Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division welcomed its first Department of Defense Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow, Debbie Reynolds, it signaled a new approach for the command’s STEM and Outreach Program in helping educators across the country.
Reynolds, who joined the command for 11 months beginning in September 2019, was an educator for the Pittsburgh school system. She helped Carderock’s STEM and Outreach Program Director, Charlotte George, identify shortcomings for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers in America. Since then, Carderock has worked closely with its fellows to create, develop and progress a naval STEM-in-a-box, which is a toolkit containing small naval-relevant activities, books and other STEM resources for students and teachers.
“That journey started with Debbie Reynolds,” George said. “Debbie taught us a lot about different technologies teachers felt comfortable using in the classroom. She gave us a new perspective on how difficult it is for an educator to pull STEM activities together.”
George and her team have attempted addressing this issue by providing more guidance and support to teachers in activities like the SeaPerch, SeaJelly and SeaGlide. As Schoolteachers from the surrounding metropolitan area visit Carderock, they leave the command having learned new ways to execute STEM activities in their own classroom. This, however, does not solve the whole challenge.
In last year’s set of Einstein Fellows, Suzy Otto revealed some of the obstacles rural-based teachers have in gathering supplies for STEM projects.
“Suzy gave us this great context on rural communities – being from Paris, Missouri,” George said. “She mentioned how there are great resources online, but the closest supply store she has is a dollar store. That’s a challenge because she can’t find a lot of the materials in time to do a project, and it’s not like she can get it quickly either by ordering online. Sourcing accessible and affordable everyday materials to teach these STEM fundamentals is important. Suzy gave us an interesting perspective to the misconceptions of being a high school physics teacher.”
Now, in Carderock’s third year of hosting Einstein Fellows, George has been able to use the lessons learned in past years to prepare a new naval-STEM-In-a-Box with this year’s Einstein Fellow, Stephanie Klixbull. Both Klixbull and George have also been able to identify one key area needing improvement in Carderock’s STEM and Outreach Program: early childhood education.
“The National Academy of Sciences just released a call-to-action proposal for science education,” Klixbull said. “They found that one of the biggest issues in the schooling system is the time, resources and materials allotted for elementary science. The average elementary school science teacher is only allocated 20 minutes a day.”
According to George, most of the activities the command provides are for students in middle school and high school. Klixbull, who is also an early childhood educator, has introduced new ways Carderock can expand its reach to all age groups.
“I understood there was such a lack of research in this space, for early childhood educators,” George said. “I think Stephanie and I feel passionate about this toolkit she created, which is incredibly valuable. Carderock, traditionally, has always said we are a K-12 program, but we really didn’t have anything for that age group. So, this has been a reckoning within our own portfolio to improve our resources.”
On March 12, Carderock held its first professional development training for local educators in West Bethesda, Maryland. Four teachers attended the kindergarten-to-second grade workshop, which focused on naval-relevant, hands-on accessible STEM activities specifically designed for early childhood educators.
During the workshop, each teacher received a naval STEM-In-a-Box with eight ready-to-go classroom activities focusing on the theme, Ocean Creations. They also received teacher guides and student workbooks for each activity, as well as a tour of Carderock’s David Taylor Model Basin and Maneuvering and Seakeeping Basin. STEM professionals from the command, including George, Klixbull and engineer Ashlee Floyd, assisted the workshop and provided real-world context from their experiences in the STEM workforce.
Some of the materials included in the STEM-In-a-Box were literacy books like Oh Barnacles or Golf Ball Float. The former, in particular, teaches students how barnacles create resistance or drag on a vessel.
“My favorite one, Oh Barnacles, teaches about marine life and ecosystems,” Klixbull said. “It discusses how it can have a positive and negative impact. With students, we talk about what a barnacle is and how they can cause drag on a boat. Then we do a controlled variable test or activity to evaluate.”
Klixbull added that students attach glue dots or pom-poms to their small boats to mimic the effect of barnacles on a naval ship. After the first round of testing, students are instructed to add a coating of petroleum jelly to act as anti-fouling coat on actual vessels. George and Klixbull plan each STEM-In-a-Box activity to mirror accurate naval concerns and applications.
“This is just one of the many activities we have, but it is a great visualization about how to fix the problem,” Klixbull said. “I’ve worked with Carderock engineers and scientists to confirm the accuracy of these small projects. We try to make every lesson tie back in with the Navy.”
George hopes to continue improving the toolkit in the future, and she believes students, especially at a young age, would benefit from learning STEM holistically through a multidisciplinary approach.
“We want these STEM opportunities to be accessible and affordable,” she said. “Even if that means sourcing the materials yourself, asking parents to donate supplies, or asking students to bring in their own plastic water bottles to recycle them into a STEM project – we want it to be relatively cheap to pull together so anyone can do them.”
Apart from making it affordable, George said she and Klixbull are focused on making the STEM-In-a-Box an easy set-up for all teachers, adding how important it is to consider the limited time educators have in the classroom.
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 12.28.2022 12:02 |
| Story ID: | 435977 |
| Location: | BETHESDA, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 125 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Carderock Creates Naval STEM-In-a-Box for Educators, by Edvin Hernandez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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