Activities & Resources for Programs – November

ACTIVITIES

 

 

 

 

NASA Engineering Playlist 

Looking for a sequence of activities you can implement in your afterschool program today? Say goodbye to googling or searching on Pinterest. Use the following activities in sequence to support youth in building an engineering mindset with NASA activities.  

Lesson 1: Build An Airplane (Engineering Design Process Activity) – Build an airplane that has ailerons, elevators and a rudder. 

Lesson 2: Build a Satellite (Engineering Design Process Activity) – This lesson provides students with an understanding of satellites, their use and structure, and power systems. In this potentially multi-day activity, students will use the engineering design process to design, build, test and improve a model satellite. 

Lesson 3: Women@NASA: Role Models (Role Models and Mentors Connection) Watch a video of one of the women who are engineers and work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. After watching a video, have the youth write a paragraph about the engineer, one wondering what they have about the engineer, and one question they would ask the engineer.

Lesson 4: Make a Soda Can Engine (Engineering Design Process) – Students will investigate the action-reaction principle (Newton’s third law of motion) by creating a water-propelled engine. By observing the device in action and changing certain variables, students will explore the properties of engines and the dynamics behind directionality and thrust. 

Lesson 5: Women@NASA: Careers (Role Models and Mentor Connection) – Many people dream of careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.  Hear about the fascinating careers at NASA.  After watching the short video, youth write a paragraph about the career they might want in STEM.

Looking for EVEN More at NASA?! Activity Toolkit: Engineering is Elementary’s NASA Partnership free units – A suite of free NASA-funded STEM resources for students in grades 3-8. All resources are research-based and classroom-tested. They are designed to support students’ understanding of space, while helping them see themselves as capable problem solvers.

 

 

 

Supported by the Mott Foundation, Mizzen is available at no cost to afterschool professionals! Encourage partners to download the Mizzen By Mott app to access STEM  activities at your finger-touch!  You’ll find it in Mizzen here. 

Featured Activities & Playlists

  • Mizzen Playlist: STEM Activities for K-5th Grade in Small Groups – This playlist is a great mix of engineering and science activities that are easy and fun for small groups of students.
  • Mizzen Playlist: Science Notebooks for 3rd – 12th Grade – Keeping a notebook can help your students think and act like scientists and engineers. Sample these easy-to-implement strategies and lessons to bring science notebooking into your program.
  • Mizzen Module: S.INQ Up Earth and Space for 6-8th Grade – Earth and Space is an inquiry and exploration-based curriculum that uses hands-on activities focused on the relationships between the earth, the solar system, and human impacts on our global environment.

RESOURCES

Broadening STEM: Pride in STEM – Pride in STEM is a charity run by an independent group of LGBTQIA+ scientists & engineers from around the world. On this website, find resources, blog posts, events, and more.

Broadening STEM: 500 Queer Scientists – A database of LGBTQ+ researchers, professors, program managers, and students in a range of STEM fields: engineering, data science, chemistry, psychology, and many more disciplines.There are 1,591 people and counting profiled on this website. This database provides students, educators, and practitioners with an easy way to identify LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM in order to highlight their work and/or network with them.

Related

Activities & Resources for Programs – September

Activities & Resources for Programs – September

Activities Activities Build a Pizza Box Solar Oven - Use easily found materials to create an oven where students can cook s’mores.  The activity answers the question “What has engineering got to do with me?” in a way that is fun.  Hands-On Math: Fraction Math Trees -...

Training and Professional Development – September

Training and Professional Development – September

LOCAL OPPORTUNITIES September Fireside Chat: Using AI to Support Afterschool  Wednesday, September 27th at 1:30pm CST Add hours back into your day by utilizing AI to automate and simplify some of the time-consuming tasks. In this half hour session, we'll tackle what...

STEM Outreach Grants

STEM Outreach Grants

$1,000 STEM K-12 OUTREACH GRANTS  In coordination with Fisher Scientific, South Dakota Biotech will be awarding grants for K-12 STEM outreach efforts in South Dakota. The grants are up to $1,000 per award administered annually. Eligible applicants include but are not...

The South Dakota Afterschool Network works to better our state and its communities by connecting providers, parents and policymakers with proven tools and resources to increase the quality of and access to out-of-school time programming for K-12 children and youth.

Afterschool is a lifeline that keeps youth safe, helps kids learn and grow, and provides parents the ability to work without worry. While South Dakota is home to more than 300 afterschool programs, the demand for programs exceeds available spaces. In fact, 1 in 3 South Dakota children (34 percent) who are not in an afterschool program would be enrolled if it were available. That’s more than 42,000 children who are missing out on opportunities to participate in programming that supports their development academically, socially and economically.

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Afterschool can provide valuable opportunities for students to explore STEM, and we are here to help your program succeed in STEM Learning! From webinars and trainings to our signature TMC Trailers that bring turnkey STEM activities to your doorstep, our diverse collection of resources meets you and your students where you are and provides the support you need to deliver quality programming to your students at any age. 

The South Dakota Afterschool Network wanted to create a mapping tool to better understand the landscape of afterschool and summer programs available for children and families. From the initial launch of the new mapping tool, we have identified some startling findings.