Smashing Milk Cartons by Debra Monson and Deborah Besser

I feel this article would be beneficial to anyone that's hesitant on doing integrated STEM activities in their classroom or school. The article provides a detailed model on the steps needed... See More

I feel this article would be beneficial to anyone that's hesitant on doing integrated STEM activities in their classroom or school. The article provides a detailed model on the steps needed for a student-driven integrated STEM activity. One quote that caught my attention as I was reading this article was "interdisciplinary projects that allow students to solve real-world problems can be highly engaging and motivating." It is so true and students need more opportunities to do these kinds of projects across all grade levels. I appreciate that one of the teachers in the article was a kindergarten teacher. I have noticed in my experience that some kindergarten teachers are hesitant to do these types of activities with the their students. There were numerous connections to NGSS and CCSS. The activity of smashing milk cartons was a fun and engaging way to cover the Matter and Its Interactions standards and to go through the Science and Engineering Practices. It had connections to the graphing standards for Math. I would be interested in knowing if this project inspired the teachers to do more integrated STEM activities. Also, I would like to know why they felt that "one piece of this integrate work that could be improved was taking time to explicitly point out the connections between different content areas" would be an improvement. How powerful is it that students can't figure out what content they are in because is flows together smoothly.